Friday 6 January 2012

The Definition Of Leadership

One thing I am asked quite frequently is, "What is the definition of leadership?" and of course, I can never remember the exact quote from my book - yes I know it's a sign of getting older :) - so I normally faff around with some general distinctions around the difference between managing and leading. So I thought I'd start the new year off with offering a new defintion of leadership:Leadership is about creating an environment in which people can and do perform to the best of their

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Tuesday 3 January 2012

Leading Remote Workers

If the 2011 CISCO Connected World Technology Report is anything to go by, attracting and retaining the top talent of the future will be less about the traditional workplace motivational drivers and far more about issues such as remote working and flexible working hours.

What challenges does this trend create for leaders?

Leading remote workers has always been a difficult area as it presents leadership challenges around aspects such as trust, performance management, staff development and

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Leadership Development versus Leadership Training - Is there a difference?

When I introduce myself to people as a Leadership Development specialist one of the more common responses revolves around leadership training – “So you run leadership training?”, “What type of leadership training do you specialize in?”, “I really value leadership training” etc.

Is there really a difference between leadership training and leadership development? You bet there is and it is much more than an exercise in semantics.

Leadership training is a learning intervention.

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Leading With the Brain in Mind

In October I wrote an article introducing the SCARF model that has been developed by Dr David Rock of the NeuroLeadership Institute. Today, I’d like to take the concept further by exploring some of the key activities that might provide a threat stimulus and therefore, an away reaction versus those that provide a reward stimulus and therefore, a toward reaction. As you will see, these same factors also enable us to identify some of the differences between managing and leading.

Commanding

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Do Cultural Boundaries Exist?

Anyone who works for a global organization will be familiar with the issue of working across cultural boundaries but my provocative question is; do they really exist? And moreover, to what extent do these boundaries need to be addressed in order for global organizations thrive?

Of course every country and in many cases, regions within countries, have their own cultures. These are driven by religion, climate, industrial development, tradition and custom. Clearly there are different cultures

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How should we measure leadership potential?

In talent management circles, the received wisdom is that leadership potential is best measured by assessing learning agility – often described as an individual’s ability to learn, adapt and change. I believe this makes a certain amount of sense as people who have these three attributes would be able to learn the skills required to lead and make the transition from being an individual contributor to becoming a leader.

Is this the right approach? And is learning agility itself

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Leadership - It's a marathon not a sprint

One of the toughest balancing acts facing leaders at all levels is the need to deliver short-term results versus the leadership activities that will help sustain and increase those results over the longer term. For example:

- How often do you have to put managing vision and purpose to one side while you focus on delivering this quarter’s results?

- How often do you have to put planning to one side while you focus on delivering this quarter’s results?

- How often do you have to put

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High Trust Leadership

One of the age old questions that continues to drive many people to distraction is “What is the difference between management and leadership?” There are of course a plethora of answers to this question that have kept academics, trainers and writers going in perpetuity. For me, one of the key differences between the two is that leaders build a high level of trust with their people – that is, they create respect based relationships rather than authority based relationships.

But how can

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