Archive for the ‘Developing As a Leader’ Category

We all know that being a leader is tough role. When you are on the outside looking in it can look really easy. Yet in truth there is often a huge difference between perception and reality.

So what are some of the signs that you are leading rather than just playing at it?

You Are Thinking Long Term

There will always be things to do in any organisation no matter what it does. While you cannot ignore the present, you also need to be thinking long term too. Remember that as a leader your job is to drive the organisation forward.

You Provide Clear Direction

People want to know where they are heading so that they can decide whether they want to get on board and help you to reach the destination. As the leader you need to provide as much clarity of direction as you can. Vagueness about direction of travel will always result in less than optimal results.

You Listen A Lot

Leaders often talk about the importance of employees being engaged. What makes people engage is the belief that their ideas will be listened to and acted on when it is appropriate. Failing to listen is one of the fastest ways to disengage those who you lead.

You Take Personal Responsibility

It might not seem fair but as a leader you are ultimately responsible. In practice what that means is that you have to be willing to take personal responsibility even when there are potentially serious consequences for you.

You Recognise The Contributions Of Others

You might think that leaders are successful because they personally are brilliant. The truth is that behind every great leader there is a team of great supporters and followers. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that the public face of the organisation is doing it all by itself.

The truth is that leading is a process of continual learning and the best leaders keep growing and developing.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people become great leaders and managers. Sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk.

As a leader or manager, you are going to give a presentation to a meeting, team, suppliers, customers and even maybe the general public at some point.

For many presenting is a real challenge. In fact some claim that presenting is the thing people fear most. Interestingly it is also claimed that death is number 6 on the things people fear most.

So when you are getting ready to deliver a presentation, how can you get in the zone and deliver at your best time and time again? The truth is it will vary from person to person but here are a few options to consider.

• Take a Brisk Walk

Now this might not work for everyone but what I have found that taking a brisk walk is a great way of getting in the zone. If possible give it a try.

• Do Some Tongue Twisters

It is really easy to get tongue tied in a presentation. Using tongue twisters can be a great way of reducing the risk of getting tongue tied. Basically you repeat a phrase over and over, getting faster each time. Two of my favourites are ‘Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pepper’ and ‘She Sells Sea Shells on the Sea Shore’.

• Deep Breathing

Taking a really deep breath in and exhaling slowly can slow down your heart rate and calm you down. This is really helpful if you know that you have a tendency to gallop through your presentation.

• Visualisation

Many people mentally go through and visualise themselves giving a great presentation. This is very common in sports but can be applied just as well to presentation preparation.

The truth is there is no right or wrong way to prepare for delivering a presentation and the key is to find what works best for you.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people become great leaders and managers. Sign up for his free audio e-course, Leadership Success, at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Being in a leadership role is tough. There are many demands on you to consistently deliver results. Once you achieve a specific result, a new and often bigger, challenge comes along.

One thing I know that many leaders struggle to make time for is their own development. As someone who previously worked in big organisations at Director level, I know that it can be so easy to put your own growth to the bottom of the list.

On the other hand, is it really wise to put your development to the bottom of the pile? Perhaps if you can answer “100% yes” to all of the following indicators, it might be that you have nothing more to learn.

Indicator 1: You Achieve All Your Targets All the Time

If that is you, congratulations. You are definitely exceptional and maybe even unique.

Indicator 2: You Are Crystal Clear About The Direction Of Your Organisation, Function or Team

In other words you have no vagueness about what you are trying to achieve personally and for your organisation function or team.

Indicator 3: You Get The Buy-In and Support of Everyone For Every Initiative

Leaders don’t make change and initiate success personally but what they do is facilitate the success of others by getting the buy-in they need. In my experience there is always going to be a critical mass to influence.

Indicator 4: You Are An Expert Listener

Most leaders excel when it comes to verbal and written communication while the exceptional are great listeners too.

Indicator 5: All Of Your Teams Are Working In Perfect Harmony

By this I mean all the different functions are working together, collaboratively and pursuing a common agenda with no silo working or turf protection.

Indicator 6: You Always Work At Optimal Productivity

If this is you, the chances are you are someone who gets things done without the need to put in continuously long hours.

Indicator 7: You Get Rave Reviews from All Stakeholders

Your employees, trade unions, the media, customers, suppliers, lobby groups, shareholders, analysts and others.

So how did you do? To how many of the 7 indicators were you able to say a resounding “yes”? If you are like most, the chances are that it is likely to be a mixed picture.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements Ltd helps professional people become great leaders. Sign up for his free 6 part audio e-course.

Being a leader is a massively busy and demanding role. Faced with so much to do it can be difficult to take the time to take stock and remind yourself of your unique traits as a leader.

There are obviously some great resources that can help you to unlock your hidden talents. I particularly like Marcus Buckingham’s Now Discover Your Strengths and there are many others.

On the other hand you might just be looking for something that you can do really quickly, so here is a quick checklist. Just score yourself between 1 and 5, where a 5 means you are exceptional in this area and 1 means you are a beginner.

Leadership Trait	Score
I know what I stand for as a leader
I have communicated my values to my team and peers
I have worked with my team and my peers to identify shared values
I know what I want to achieve personally
I know what I want to achieve for the organisation, function or team that I lead
I have secured the support and buy-in of others to help me achieve
I always provide clear direction
I take responsibility for what does and does not happen
I make expectations clear
I follow through and hold others to account
I listen more than I talk
I don’t pretend to be the expert at everything
I regularly inspire and motivate my team because I know what motivates and inspires them
I play to my strengths
I get others playing to their strengths
I embrace rather than avoid difficult and challenging stuff
I see change as part and parcel of leading

Once you have worked through this basic assessment, you will have the base data that will let you know what you do really well and what areas you might need to work on as a leader.

Armed with this you are all set for even greater results and success.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Now this might seem like a strange title for a blog post and even I would admit that it is a little quirky. What prompted me to write this blog post is that I seem to be coming across more and more people who aspire to be leaders and think that it is all about getting more and more qualifications.

Now don’t get me wrong, qualifications and extra knowledge are always useful. At the same time you need to be checking to make sure that you are not gathering more qualifications:

• As a substitute for taking on that scary real life work project that is going to really take you out of your comfort zone, challenge you and see what you are really made of.
• In the hope that somehow employers will see you in a different light and fast track you to the top.
• As a substitute for developing the interpersonal skills and qualities that are so vital to success at a senior level.

Next time you find yourself thinking about getting yet another qualification or certification, stop and ask yourself:

• How does this add to what I already know?
• What difference is it really going to make?
• Is there another way of achieving the same result?
• Am I really applying all of the knowledge that I already have?

The truth is that collecting and delivering mail is hugely important. At the same time you need to decide whether you are in the business of collecting more letters or are in the business of realising your own potential and creating success as a leader.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

Tags: Responding To Leadership Challenges, Qualifications and Leadership, The Fast Track to Leadership, Leadership Experience, Leadership Qualities, Skills for Senior Management

We are increasingly hearing about the financial challenges facing organisations and how difficult it is for employees to get funding for leadership development.

While it is always great to have the opportunity to take formal training, there are many simple and effective ways to develop your leadership capability.

• Shadow Someone At a Senior Level

  I am amazed just how underutilised this is as a way of developing leadership capability. Spending a day shadowing someone at a senior level will give you great insights into the reality of the role and also the opportunity to see the strategies they use to handle different situations. Often the only thing that stops people from doing this is that they don’t ask.

• Take A Secondment

  Bigger organisations can provide opportunities for people to take a secondment to another part of the business. This might be for 3 months or even a year. It’s ideal when you want to build your skill set and step out of your comfort zone.

• Be Part Of A Project Team

  I used to love being part of project teams as you got to interact with people from different disciplines, learned a bundle of new skills and developed yourself as a person.

• Be A Mentor For Someone

  It is amazing how mentoring someone else can also be a great opportunity for you to grow and develop a host of skills like listening, questioning, providing feedback and constructively challenging. Who in your organisation is looking for a mentor like you?

The truth is that the best person to take responsibility for your leadership development is you. So what are you waiting for?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to take advantage of his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

If you are in the position of leading others, one thing that can be said with certainty is that you will make mistakes.

While it might not always be comfortable to make mistakes, the truth is that they arise. So how do you bounce back from mistakes?

1. Acknowledge that things have not gone as well as you would like.
2. Make a note of what worked and what did not work. The chances are there are still many positives to take from the experience.
3. Identify what you would do differently next time.
4. Move on. You cannot change the past but, with the right outlook, can hugely influence the future.

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

1. Focus on listening rather than multitasking.
2. Don’t jump to snap judgements.
3. Clarify understanding by summarising periodically.
4. Pay attention to body language as it may give clues to disconnects between what is being said and what should be being said.
5. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings, especially when handling difficult staff.
6. Don’t let your own need to be right or have the last word get in the way of listening.

What else from your experience 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 seven days time, Britain will go to the polls and vote on who should lead the country over the next 5 years.

Without doubt whoever wins faces a challenging agenda. The run up to the election has provided some interesting lessons in leadership more generally.  So what are some the key lessons.

The Demands Are Huge

Just look at the amount of time those seeking election have had to put into their campaign and if elected they will be expected to hit the ground running.  Being a leader of an organisation is no different, everyone is looking to you for answers.

It Is Difficult To Please Everyone

I was listening to an interview with Gordon Brown on the radio where listeners of the local radio station were asked to put questions to the current Prime Minister.  What I noticed is that rather than the questions being about general policy, people tended to ask about things that were very specific to them.  If you are a leader in a large organisation, just think about the diverse range of interests you have to meet.  In reality you cannot meet the needs of everyone.

It Takes Courage To Lead

We all have opinions and views about what needs to happen and what should and what should not be done.  Being the observer or commentator is easy but stepping up to lead takes courage and is not for the faint hearted.

You Need To Make Choices

In the ideal world you would do everthing but sadly we don’t live in the ideal world.  Any form of leadership relies on you making choices.  Some of them will be popular whilst some will be unpopular but you need to be willing to make choices.

There Are No Quick Fixes

As a leader you want to be creating long term success.  Sure there may be some quick gains along the way, but when faced with big challenges there really are no quick fixes, it is a long term project.

Bottom Line: Leadership can be both challenging and rewarding and it is key that you take the opportunity to continually learn to achieve long term success.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers.  To sign up for his Weekly Leadership and Management Success Tips 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?