Archive for June, 2009
5 + 5 = 10 Mistakes to Avoid June 5 2009 2 responses
Based on a study of 11,000 360 degree surveys, leadership feedback gurus Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman have identified ten behaviors found in the bottom 10% of leaders.
The top five mistakes they make are:
- Lack energy and enthusiasm
- Accept their own mediocre performance
- Lack clear vision and direction
- Have poor judgment
- Don’t collaborate
Pretty easy to see how leaders in the bottom 10% would have characteristics like that. But what about leaders in the top 10% or 20%? How do they run off the rails? (And they do up to 40% of the time.)
In our Next Level Leadership™ group coaching program, we’ve run a 360 over the past three years on the skills and behaviors that rising executives need to exhibit to make successful transitions. We’ve run it with almost 400 high potential executives at this point and, out of 72 specific behaviors, the bottom five in our database are:
- Paces himself/herself by building in regular breaks from work.
- Manages workload so that he/she has time for unexpected problems or issues.
- Spends less time using his/her functional skills and more time encouraging team members to use theirs.
- Regularly takes time to step back and define or redefine what needs to be done.
- Focuses less on day to day operations and more on identifying and taking advantage of strategic opportunities.
What do these low ranking characteristics of high potential leaders have in common? One of the most important threads is that they are all behaviors of "go to people." These are the people who are going to get the job done no matter what even if (especially if?) that means taking heroic measures at the 11th hour. Of course, the challenge for go to people who have risen to the next level is that there is simply too much to do for that approach to continue to work.
If you’re like me, when you see a list of ten mistakes to avoid, you immediately start scanning it with the question in mind, “OK, am I doing any of these?” If you find one from the first list of five, my advice is to step back and examine your motivation for the role that you're in. What could you do to reconnect to the purpose of your work?
If you find that you have an opportunity in the bottom five, pick one to work on that you think will make the biggest difference and enlist the help of some trusted colleagues for advice on how to be better. Look for opportunities to practice some of their ideas in the "school of real life."
Build Your Network with Questions June 3 2009 one response
Earlier this week I was coaching a group of high potential leaders moving up to the executive level. Our topic was “organizational presence” which was on point since many of these folks are working on expanding their networks beyond their immediate areas of responsibility.
When I lead a group coaching session, I like to have everyone share examples of what they’re doing to improve their leadership skills in “real life”. It was striking to hear the results that several leaders were getting by being intentional about asking more questions in meetings. There were two big tips in the stories. Here they are along with a “bonus tip” I shared with the group.
What Do Sonia Sotomayor, John Roberts and Mr. Spock Have in Common? June 1 2009 no responses
The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor has sparked an interesting public discussion on the place of empathy in the justice system. As usual, there are people lining up on the left and the right to argue for or against empathy playing a role in forming the opinions of a judge.
When people are engaged in a debate on a word, I think it’s usually a good idea to first look up the definition of that word. Here’s how dictionary.com defines empathy:
Burt Solomon, in an insightful piece in the Washington Post, points out that the life experience of Supreme Court justices has always influenced their opinions. He provides a number of interesting historical examples which are summarized by this observation from the late Justice Felix Frankfurter:
Just as her experience of growing up poor in a Bronx project shaped the perspective of Judge Sotomayor, the experience of growing up as the son of a corporate executive has shaped the perspective of Chief Justice John Roberts. They both have empathy or “intellectual identification” with others; it’s just that their empathy is informed by different life experiences. As Solomon points out in his article, you can see their different experiences at play in their opinions. I’d argue that neither perspective is good or bad, they just are.
And that brings me to a point about all leaders whether or not they find themselves on the U.S. Supreme Court. We bring our life experience, our empathy, our intellectual identification with us. Our decisions and actions are influenced by the unique life experience and perspective we bring to the leadership role. Let’s not kid ourselves that they’re not. The best we and our followers can hope for is that we as leaders recognize this. When we recognize that we’re never truly objective, we stand a much better chance of listening to and paying attention to all of the stakeholders in a given situation.
So as I was thinking about this post, I tried to come up with a leader who actually could be truly objective. The best I could do was Mr. Spock. But, as you’ll know if you’ve seen the new Star Trek movie, not even Spock makes decisions based purely on objective logic. That darn human part of his heritage keeps getting in the way. As it is with Spock, so it is with us. Live long and prosper.
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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