5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of June 13, 2016

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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.

Influencing People Who Don’t Report to You by John Baldoni at SmartBrief

Maybe the toughest thing in management to do is persuade others to go along with you when you have no authority over them. If you find yourself in this situation, consider these five action steps…

My Comment: People often ask me how they can influence the people they can’t control. My reply is always, “Who do you think you can control?”

(Hint: The answer is no one.) You can’t control another human being. They make their own choices. However, you can influence other people. That’s why I invite leaders not to motivate, but cultivate.

Baldoni’s advice is spot on and includes a video along with the five brief action steps. I would invite you to consider these same principles in all your interactions. Having the ability to fire someone is different than the ability to influence and draw out their best.

3 Hurdles to Implementing Leadership Development by Darleen DeRosa at Business2Community.com

Framed sculptor and plastic surgeon Jack Penn once said one of the secrets to life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. This is certainly true when it comes to implementing leadership development programs.

You understand the importance of developing employees—after all, it’s a primary focus of your job. But when it’s time to make the case to others within your organization, you’re often met with excuses, concerns about logistics or questions about whether it’s even worthwhile. Here are a few of the most common objections to implementing leadership development and tips on how to respond to those concerns.

My Comment: DeRosa takes a thorough look at the reasons business don’t invest in leadership development and addresses three common barriers: time, cost, and difficulty in measuring results. Honestly, this subject boggles my mind.

Would you ever hire a new employee, give them no training, and send them out to deal with your customers? Of course not! If you did, you would soon be out of business. And yet…over half of managers receive no training before being given responsibility for your most important resource – your people.

As you look for effective, measureable, efficient leadership development, I invite you to check out the Winning Well eCourse. It’s self-paced, delivered online, fun – and features practical tools you and your leaders can put to work right away.

Why Isn’t Every Leader a Servant Leader by Ken Blanchard

My wish is that someday, every leader will be a servant leader. Unfortunately, the human ego can make it difficult. There are two ways we let our ego get in the way of leading with a serving heart and mindset…

My Comment: I began my first book, The Seven Things Your Team Needs to Hear You Say, by looking at what keeps us from leading well. I think it’s a serious question – after all, we’ve been working together and leading one another for a very long time. Shouldn’t we have a better grasp of it than we do? Why is it so rare?

So I was happy to see Blanchard address this question through the lens of ego afflictions: specifically false pride and fear. These twin afflictions cripple your influence – and they are incredibly widespread. I’ve certainly experienced and wrestled with both of them…and I haven’t always won those struggles. He also offers antidotes for both of these universal challenges.

4 Ways to Know if Your Company Has a Successful Culture by Shandra Martinez

The difference between a great and horrible place to work can come down to a company’s culture and can be gauged by how employees engage at work and whether morale is high. This “soft” concept is hard to tie to return on investment or profit, but it is important in attracting the best and brightest talent…

My Comment: Martinez, citing a culture consultant, talks about four qualities to look for in a healthy culture: clear vision, authenticity, respect, and alchemy. I haven’t seen alchemy in these discussions – what she’s getting at is the sense that everyone is pulling their weight and creating something powerful together. I would add a quick reminder: your team has a culture – whether you’ve intentionally created it or not. Is it a culture you want to work in? Will other people want to continue working in it?

U.S. Employee Engagement Slips Below 33% in May by Amy Adkins at Gallup.com

The percentage of U.S. workers whom Gallup considers “engaged” in their jobs averaged 32.7% in May. While still among the better monthly averages on record, May follows two consecutive months in which employee engagement averages remained at or above 33.0% — a rare occurrence in Gallup’s history of tracking the metric.

My Comment: There are a couple different ways to look at this information. Yes, employee engagement is trending up. From May 2011 to May 2016 it’s improved from about 27.5% to 32.7%.

Is that something to be excited about? Perhaps…improvement is good and if the trend continues it promises better quality of work life as well as corresponding increases in productivity.

That said…another way to interpret the data is that engagement has basically hovered around 30% for the last five years – and that’s simply not good enough. I don’t know a single leader who would be satisfied with 3 energized employees out of 10.

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!

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