Decision-making and leadership are two CEO skills inextricably entwined. It’s true that you can be a world class decision-maker and still be a lousy leader . . . that is, you can be a great decision-maker but still have other behavioral characteristics that disqualify you as a great leader. However, the reverse is not true.
“Change with the world – or it will change without you.”
Kristin van Ogtrop is the editor of Real Simple, a monthly lifestyle magazine for women. In a recent edition of Time magazine, she wrote an opinion piece entitled, “There’s a difference between a boss and a friend, and that’s as it should be.” In it, she bemoans a lot of research done by the Gallup
“Hire the best, fire the rest” (Part 2)
In our previous post, “Hire the best, fire the rest,” we talked about the “topgrading” concepts espoused by management psychologist Dr. Brad Smart. In his book, “Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People.” He forwards the idea that, any employee the company hires or promotes, from the executive suite
“Hire the best, fire the rest”
Brad Smart isn’t a household name . . . at least, not in my household. But he holds a PhD in management psychology and is the author of “Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People.” In that book, Dr. Smart advocates a system whereby a company identifies its “A-Players”
“You can manage things, but people need to be led.”
John Maxwell, who has written many books on leadership and who teaches courses in it, talks about “The Five Levels of Leadership.” (NOTE: If you want to watch Maxwell’s entire 27-minute presentation, you can view it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPwXeg8ThWI ). In it, he describes the “Five Levels” as a pyramid whereby all of us start at
Solve Problems with Ignorance, Not Experience
“When you’re a little bit dumb and naïve, things get done that no one believed could be done.” We don’t know who said that, but it’s true. Consider the new, fresh-faced young salesman who marches into an account we wrote off long ago as a waste of time. We all laugh at his innocence and
“Outstanding performance is inconsistent with fear of failure.”
In today’s business environment, change is inevitable. It’s all around us . . . new government regulations are thrust upon us, new competitors enter our market as old competitors leave, and new technologies make current technologies obsolete. Yet our instincts are to resist change. After all, we perform well doing things the way we do
Everyone is accountable
Accountability. Everybody talks about it, but few really practice it. In its purest form, accountability is a contract to carry out a specific responsibility, and if the responsibility is time-sensitive, to carry it out within a specific time frame. The problem is, for many people, accountability isn’t viewed as a contract, but more of a
“What Everybody Knows Is Frequently Wrong.”
In his book, “A Class With Drucker” William Cohen talks about the “lost lessons” he learned from renowned management guru, Peter Drucker, as a first-year graduate student in Drucker’s classroom. One of those lessons was to disregard so-called “conventional wisdom,” avoid being a crowd follower, and draw your own conclusions about a situation based on
Using DISC for fun and profit . . . and did I mention it’s FREE?!
Would you be interested in a behavioral assessment tool that can help you: Strengthen your communication skills? Build your leadership abilities as well as your coaching and mentoring skills? Reduce personal and organizational conflict, stress, and turnover? Make better hiring decisions? Learn to appreciate behavioral strengths, challenges and differences in yourself and in others? Increase
