Archive for April, 2010

1. High levels of personal commitment and willing to do what it takes.
2. Ready and able to bounce back from setbacks and disappointments.
3. Able to keep hold of the bigger picture even when dealing with the here and now.
4. Committed to helping others to achieve success.
5. Willing to make the time for others.
6. Courageous and willing to make the tough calls, even if it might be unpopular.
7. Treat everyone fairly and with respect, whatever level they are at.

So what other attributes would you add to the list?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

In this blog post, I thought I would do something different and share with you 9 books that I recommend for anyone with a real interest in leadership.

Leighton On Leadership – Alan Leighton
• What I really like about this book is the range of tips and ideas throughout the book from a wide range of business leaders. This adds and complements the great insights from Alan Leighton, the former boss of Asda and Chairman of Royal Mail.

The Five Dysfunctions Of A CEO – Patrick Lencioni

• This book has it all. It’s a quick read, written as a fable, and really pulls out the 5 key things that get in the way of leadership success.

Working With Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman

• Reflecting back on my own career and now as a business owner, it has become clear to me just how much softer skills, emotional quotient or interpersonal skills matter to your success. In this book, Goleman shows how it all applies to the work environment.

The Goal – Eliyahu M Goldratt and Jeff Cox

• This is written as a story, like Patrick Lencioni’s book, but within the story are a ton of insights about what it takes to achieve results.

7 Habits Of Highly Effective People – Stephen Coley

• Simple, well written but with what appear really obvious habits. Sadly, these simple habits are not always applied when it comes to leading.

The Success Principles – Jack Canfield

• While not one that you might think would be on the list, the reason I have included this is that it contains a huge number of the attributes that are essential to leadership success.

Time To Get Started – Mark Fritz

• The real value of this book is that it provides some simple tips but, much more significantly, forces you to stop and think about what you are doing (or not doing) and why.

Time Management For Dummies – Clare Evans

• Don’t be deluded by the title. What I notice is that people, and especially senior people, struggle with getting things done. Clare does a great job at looking at the subject broadly and practically.

In Search Of Robert Millar – Richard Moore

• No, you won’t usually see this on the list of leadership books. Why I have chosen to include this book (which is actually about the career of a successful professional cyclist) is to show the personal commitment and desire needed to reach the top in anything.

Well, that’s my 9 favourites that I would put on the must read list. What others would you add? Why not leave a comment with your recommendations?

Tip 1
• Get clear on what’s priority and what’s not.

Tip 2

• Invest your time in the priority activities.

Tip 3

• If you have something that you have to do, make sure that you have the skills to do it.

Tip 4

• Keep track of where you are spending your time so that you can be sure that you are investing it wisely.

Tip 5

• Reflect periodically and make changes where necessary to take your personal effectiveness to the next level.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Many professional people get qualified in their chosen field, ready to fulfil their promise, and somehow end up getting stuck.

While there might be no blueprint that will provide you with the sure-fire way to achieve career success, there are some things you can do to boost your chances in my experience.

Get a breadth of experience

While it might be tempting to be known as the expert in something, the truth is that, if you want to get to a more senior level, you need to get a breadth of experience. This can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Taking a secondment
• Running a project
• Moving between sectors
• Covering a maternity leave.

Don’t become too comfortable

We all like to enjoy our job but in every post the first 18 to 24 months are in my experience the most fruitful in terms of personal growth. Be alert to when you start to plateau and do something to get yourself a new challenge.

Make time for continuing professional development

This is a big one and yet so often I come across people who see getting professionally qualified as the end of the journey. In reality, it is just the start. Employers look for people to have invested in their personal development. If you are serious about your career, so will they.

Get a mentor

The fastest way to progress is to find mentors who have achieved what you want to achieve and learn from them. Despite what most of us think, successful people love to help others achieve success.

In truth, many want to achieve career success but few make it a reality. What tips would you add to the list to help others achieve career success?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Comparisons are often made as to whether the private sector is better than the public sector. Having had the opportunity to work in both, I believe that there are some unique challenges of leading in the public sector.

So what are my top 5 unique challenges?

1. Size

A vast number of public sector organisations are huge compared to a lot of private sector organisations. As a result, making what can even seem like a small scale change can require huge amounts of co-ordination across the many different parts.

2. Politics

Whether it is right or wrong, the reality is that politics and the political agendas have a huge impact on what public sector organisations do or don’t do.

3. Media Attention

Rarely a day passes by without a story about one or more aspects of the public sector being reported. The balance often tends to lean towards the bad rather than the good news stories, which naturally creates less appetite for balanced risk taking.

4. Range Of Stakeholders

While most organisations have people who take an interest in them, few have the vast proportion of the population contributing to the organisation directly in financial terms. As a result, the public obviously have a huge say in what does or does not happen.

5. Negative Perceptions

There may have been a time (although I doubt it) when public servants took it easy and spent time drinking tea. These days however this is just not the case and in my experience people give much more than could reasonably be expected for the rewards they get.

The Bottom Line

Leading in the public sector brings with it some unique challenges and is not for the faint-hearted.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

If you are reading this blog post, I am guessing that you know that you need to keep growing but are short on time. To help you, here are 6 ways to develop in 6 weeks to get better results.

Week 1: Take stock

Before you can start to improve anything, you need to be clear on where you are right now. So take 5 minutes each day to reflect on the following 3 questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 2: Get feedback

If you completed Week 1, you should have your own self-assessment to hand. This week, find 10 people and ask them to give you feedback on the following questions:

• What do you do well?
• What could you do better?
• What do you need to develop most?

Week 3: Do a time audit

Almost without exception, people tell me they struggle to get things done. So to move forward you need to do your own personal time audit so that you can see where you invest your time. Do this for each hour of your working day for the next week.

Week 4: Get clarity on your key results

What does your boss judge your success on? If you think you know, check it out with your boss. If you don’t know, ask your boss.

Week 5: Develop your change plan

By now, you probably know what needs developing, have clarity on your priorities and know whether your time is being invested on your priorities. Use this to develop a plan of what changes you need to make and when.

Week 6+: Implement plan, reflect, refine

Start implementing your change plan, reflect on what is working, what needs tweaking and adjusting and what you need to stop doing.

Truth is, the secret to getting better results is to get insight, make change and keep refining until you get more of the results that you want.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here