In my last few blog posts, I’ve covered one Directive and two Supportive leadership behaviors—micro skills commonly used by SLII® leaders. In this blog post, my focus is on Showing and Telling How, another Directive leadership behavior. Directive behaviors are actions that shape and control what, how, and when things are done. As part of our company’s SLII® training, we […]
SLII®: Powering Inspired Leaders
One of the things we’ve learned in recent weeks is that when change disrupts business as usual, effective leadership is more important than ever. Businesses today must be nimble and responsive, able to apply creative solutions to unprecedented problems. But an organization can only be as agile and innovative as the people who lead it. […]
Are you delegating or abdicating?
There’s an important difference between delegating and abdicating. When you delegate to someone, you give them responsibility for something, but you stay in the information loop. Abdicating is when you give somebody responsibility and then you disappear and you’re not in the information loop. Then what happens? All of a sudden someone says, “Do you […]
Points of Power Can Help Self Leadership
The concept of power in the workforce has a negative connotation. It brings to mind such associations as coercion, manipulation, and even corruption. This does not have to be the case. Power has many positive aspects, and everyone can learn to explore and harness different sources of the individual power they have in the workplace. […]
How to Evaluate Your Leadership Style
Today, I’m going to give a short, one-question quiz. Here’s the question: How do you rate as a leader? I don’t ask this question flippantly. It is a question I’ve asked countless people at the leadership seminars we conduct. As leaders, most people rank themselves as being very close to a minor deity or at […]
How Do You Replace A Key Manager?
The first thing you need to decide when you lose a key manager is whether you need to hire a “winner” or a “potential winner” to replace this person. Winners are individuals who have demonstrated that they can do the exact job you need done. They are hard to find and they cost money, but […]
Effective Leaders Don’t Need to Be Specialists
Some folks wonder whether or not it’s true that a good leader can manage anyone—even someone doing a job the leader doesn’t understand or someone with skills the leader doesn’t have. And, if it’s true, how is it possible? In fact, leaders are often responsible for individuals who perform tasks the leader may never have […]
Pay Attention to Needs and Motivations
A good way to explain how an individual’s motivation fluctuates is to look at Abraham Maslow’s theory of the “hierarchy of needs.” Maslow argued that we are all motivated by a variety of needs. He claimed these various needs could be seen on a hierarchy, moving from basic, low-level needs to higher level needs. The […]
The Five Steps of Training
A lot of managers don’t realize it, but one of their responsibilities is to be an educator. The problem is that not all managers are born teachers. For those who want to be good teachers, here’s a five-step method for developing those necessary teaching skills. The five basic steps to good teaching/training are: 1. Tell; […]