Leadership in the Moment

The New Year jolts even the most cynical of us into considering the idea of renewal.  We can go forward or backward but standing still is not an attractive option.  For some, it’s similar to cleaning house.  Maybe you look at your surroundings and make a determination of whether to keep or toss.  Perhaps it’s a time to make a commitment to discover your “inner leader”.  What will you do differently this year to enhance your ability to lead and have others willingly follow?  What habits will you toss which will you keep and strengthen?   

Our new eLearning program starts in January. This web-based training is designed to provide participants with all of the tools needed to start applying The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® including The Leadership Practices Inventory® (LPI). For more information and registration:

http://www.sonomaleadership.com/Workshops/elearning.html

That was the question posed in our local newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, yesterday.  The festive time we spend with our families, known as “the holidays” often creates fake gaiety and unrealistic expectations.  To cope, we often slip behind familiar masks, according to the Chronicle.  One may be a role we play when we visit our family of origin–parents and sibs.  (Mine is that I’m still “Princess Pat” who refused to give in to my brothers’ atrocious table manners.)  Another role may be the one we take on with our own family or friends.  (Here I’m the “Organizer” who makes festive plans and carries them out.)

            The role-playing idea made me curious about the roles that leaders play in the workplace.  Are you a leader who challenges the system or goes along with it?  Perhaps one who demonstrates integrity or do you push the envelope of honesty?  What is the role you play and do you want to change it? 

Sonoma Leadership Systems presented a webinar this morning on the topic of “Leading in a Virtual Environment”.  Our expert in the topic is Beth High and she shared her insights on this challenge.  A few highlights were:  As an effective leader, you must–

•  Be clear in your vision and values
• Engage your constituents in new ways (“meet them where they are” technologically speaking.  What is their preferred method of communicating?)
• Ask for feed-back and then act accordingly
• Come across in virtual channels as compelling and consistent

In approximately two days (after December 14, 2009) you can hear the entire webinar on our site at:  http://www.sonomaleadership.com/webinars/webinars.html

We’d like to hear from you.  What are your leadership challenges and successes as a virtual leader?   

If you’re in an organization that has regular meetings you consider boring, you’re not alone.  Turns out that most employees agree with that assessment.  In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni makes a case for creating a “culture of conflict”.  He reminds leaders that they shouldn’t avoid conflict out of a fear of setting up an uncomfortable environment but, rather, as a door opener for productive debate. Fear of conflict is only one of Lencioni’s five dysfunctions.  He gives us a practical guide for building fully functioning teams by first exploring what is dysfunctional and building up from there.  One of the lessons learned—no more bØring meetings. 

This month’s issue of Money Magazine gives us some admirable, “do good” ideas.  In a climate of giving even in tough times, there are some creative ways to maximize your charitable impact.  While volunteering your time at shelter or charitable organization is greatly appreciated, they suggest the best benefit is to give from the professional skills you’ve accumulated.  As leaders, you can volunteer to use the skills that got you to where you are today.  A CEO can spearhead a fund raising effort.  A financial director can help with the books.  A trainer/facilitator can offer complimentary leadership training to volunteers.  An HR executive can organize a day for employees to work together on a charitable project.  The list goes on.  An important ingredient is that your organization honor employees’ volunteer efforts by acknowledging their work and by getting behind a charitable cause that inspires your team.  In other words, continuously “Encourage the Heart” (as offered in The Leadership Challenge®) inside and outside of your organization. 

The end of the year is the ideal time to rethink your business plan.  Both words, strategic and tactical, are closely connected yet the differences are:  (1) Strategic planning relates to issues that support your organization’s mission and purpose of its existence.  The role leadership is critical in this planning phase as is sharing the vision with ones constituents.   (2) Tactics are the actions that are necessary to carry out the strategic plan.  It’s the “how to” part of the plan.  The key is to answer the question of “How can goals be accomplished within the limits of resources.”  Connecting the tactical moves to the strategic plan takes the input of constituents at all levels of the organization.  Sounds like a good reason to take the time to engage your most valuable resource (people) in this important process.     

 In The Leadership Challenge®, there are Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® and one is to Encourage the Heart by celebrating collective values and victories.  Successful leaders already know this yet a few ideas of “how to” never hurt. The publication, Bottom Line, offers 5 simple steps to make work more fun (by Dr. Filomena Warihay).  Most would agree that when work is fun, creativity is unleashed and cooperation and collaboration is increased.  A few “how to’s” are, 1.  Smile more – studies show that smiling causes change in the brain and blood that make one feel happy. 2. Use enthusiastic language – crisp, upbeat comments liven things up.  3.  Don’t wait to celebrate – mark small gains along the way to your goals, host a pizza lunch, write a personal note acknowledging a specific act and generally reward your team.  4.  Brag – not about yourself but about your teams’ success in a public way.  5.  Promote silliness – enliven meetings by building in team activities such as hats, fooz balls to toss, candid photos of your team.  Even a few minutes can raise spirits and enthusiasm.  Give it a try at your next gathering! 

An executive at Safeway, Inc. one of the largest supermarket retailers, spoke to investors last week giving his positive “spin” on economic trends.  They have noticed that shoppers are trading up to more expensive items such as better wines and going from plain coffee to upscale drinks such as fancy frappichinos with whipped cream.  The executive said that these examples “suggests to me that we’re at or near the bottom of this whole thing and that would be good for all of us if that’s true.”  Is this a reliable harbinger of economic recovery?  Perhaps the coffee upgrades could simply be the effect of caffeine which makes us appear more industrious. If so, that would in itself make consumers more upbeat and positive about spending.  Is this suggestion simplistic or a plausible recovery indicator?        

What if you were asked to write about your Personal Best Leadership Moment (as we do in The Leadership Challenge® workshops) but it had to be in 140 characters or less?  That would indeed be a challenge.  In the San Francisco area paper today, the question was posed, “Imagine if Twitter was around 100’s of years ago?” They then proceeded to quote famous writers and proposed how their messages would read today in Twitter.  One was by Martin Luther King in his “I have a Dream” speech.  If it were “tweeted” today it might look like this:  “U R equal. I am equal.  We R all equal.  My dream is that we have no more h8.,”   Twitter certainly has its place as a quick exchange of thought in social networking but it’s not a place to find value in communicating with the full depth of the English language.  Wht do U Thnk?