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Leadership Skills: How Much Should You Trust Others?
In today’s organizations, a variety of buzz words and themes are circulating such as: teamwork, vision casting, mentoring, change management, and empowerment. Each of these roles and related tasks are dependent upon trust. With a low trust culture, it will be difficult or impossible to successfully accomplish any one of these, since each is heavily dependent upon trust and trustworthiness.
Leadership Legacy: How to Share Wisdom
This is a guest post by Philip A. Clemens, former Chairman and CEO of the Clemens Family Corporation.
Part of being a leader and possessing good leadership skills includes being intentional about what we pass on to the next generation- whether that includes our family, our workplaces and coworkers, or those we interact with in the community. But what do we leave? I believe that it is much more important to pass on wisdom rather than wealth.
6 Leadership Articles You Should Read in the Next 90 Days
Our lives tend to slow down a bit over the summer. This is the perfect time to evaluate ourselves and work on our weak spots to get ready for the craziness that usually accompanies the fall. Here are six leadership articles that everyone in a leadership position should take the time to read this summer in order to gear up for the months ahead.
Nonprofit Structure: Keeping Your Board Engaged
Over the years, we have heard many nonprofit leaders complain about various aspects of their boards. Some board members have even expressed that they dread attending board meetings or that they feel like the board is nothing but a rubber stamp for the organization’s director! To have an effective nonprofit structure, you need a healthy board with members who are engaged. This will help the organization maintain its momentum. However, too often, making sure the board is doing meaningful work is overlooked.
Leadership Skills: Reading the Behaviors on Your Team
In managing a team, it's important that you build good team leadership skills, and one ways to do that is to learn to read the behaviors of your team members. Humans are very complex! Commingling emotion, personality, temperament, intellect, and the motivations of the heart can make understanding what someone really wants hard to decipher. Having finely honed emotional intelligence (EQ) skills allows a leader to read the source of frustration in others and give them what they actually need in order to once again be happily engaged and productive. The following examples show how leaders can help ease tension by paying close attention to how their employees are acting.
3 Tips to Managing the Change Process
u·biq·ui·tous (yo͞oˈbikwədəs). This is one of those hard to pronounce words that make people around the user say, “She must be real smart!” However, the word is a good one to use when describing change. Ubiquitous means “all over the place” or “pervasive”. And that describes all the change surrounding us – it’s everywhere!
6 Top Resources for Your Digital Media Strategy
In a world where technology and the way we interact are constantly changing, it can be hard to keep up with the ever-shifting realm of digital media. Here are some of the top resources for helping you create a more effective digital media strategy.
Warning Signs that You Are Not Delegating
Over the past 25 years of serving as a leader and a consultant, I have seen a number of warning signs that pointed to staff members, business owners, church pastors, and leaders (including myself) not delegating. (You can read about the 7 things that keep leaders from delegating here.)
Breaking the Cycle of Living to Impress
Why do the majority of us try to impress others?
It probably begins as a child when you start to compare what you have or don’t have to others around you. Then, it is reinforced by so many others who really mean well. Sometimes it’s your parents who want you to have the best, so they can be seen as parents who give their kid only the best. It’s also reinforced by the kids you hang out with or by the “cool” kids in the neighborhood.
7 Actions of Leaders with High EQ
Leaders who consistently display emotional maturity are more likely to have a high performing and loyal team following them. But being an emotionally intelligent (EQ) leader takes a lot of hard work over time. EQ skills are best developed by focusing on one or two at a time and practicing them until they start to come naturally.
What Is Causing Your Conflict?
Unresolved conflict in the workplace is expensive on many fronts. However, conflict can be a critically important component in the formation of high-functioning teams. The key is knowing how to allow the right amount and the right kind of conflict into the system without letting it escalate into a damaging dispute. To do this, we must understand the different root causes of conflict. Which of the following 7 points is the root cause of your conflict?
How to Boost Your Team's Performance
Researchers in behavioral neuroscience have made some stunning discoveries about how our brain cells actually create a chemical connection with others. This is measurably true between leaders and their followers. Simply stated, a leader’s mood drives the mood of the team. Leaders who consistently manifest emotional maturity (high emotional intelligence) will likely have a high performing and loyal team following them.
7 Steps to Getting your Leadership Back on Track
Most people don’t like to think about their shortcomings. However, none of us are perfect. Here we have identified the top 14 bad behaviors that harm a leader’s effectiveness and influence. Do you see traces of any of these in your life?
How Healthy is Your Board?
When you go to the doctor or the emergency room, one of the first things they do is take your vital signs. These signs are called “vital” for a reason. When any one of the vital signs, like blood pressure or temperature, is far out of the acceptable range, you know you have a problem that needs to be dealt with. The same is true for boards; you need to regularly check the vital signs. The following lists include vital signs related to healthy and unhealthy boards.
9 Ways to Build Momentum
One of the most important things we have learned about organizational momentum is just how fast it can change. Organizations were once much more resilient to large and rapid fluctuations of momentum than they are today. These nine steps will help you to maintain the momentum you already have and build upon it.
5 Keys to Contentment
Living a life of contentment is not easy, especially if you will have to radically change your lifestyle in order to do it. Here are five key steps to help you on your way to choosing contentment. Many of these principles even come from the Bible!
Top 3 Elements Needed for High Momentum
There are many factors that play into organizational momentum, but from my consulting experience, there are three elements that are present in high momentum organizations.
7 Issues Stopping Leaders from Delegating
If you ever feel work hours are far too many, emails and texts overwhelming, problems to solve never ending, and projects to complete ever growing, you are drowning! One fascinating thing about “drowning” in life is that it is often an element essential to life, just like water, that is killing you! Water is a good thing, but an unmanaged, excessive amount of it can literally bury you.
Building Trust Part 6: Consistency
People tend to trust people who show predictability or consistency. When someone is erratic or unpredictable, we are less likely to trust him or her. For example, if a supervisor is friendly and joking around one day, then the next day is angry and withdrawn, and another day is serious and reserved, people will develop a sense of uncertainty about this leader and begin to question their consistency.
Building Trust Part 5: Connectedness
Relationships play a vital role in building and maintaining trust. When people are relationally connected to one another, they have a greater opportunity to know what is happening in the lives of others, to manifest care and concern when needs are discovered, and to keep potential for conflict and misunderstanding to a minimum.