Eric Jacobson

Archive for the ‘Leading By Example’ Category


Leaders: How Will The Value Of Your Days Be Measured?

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leading By Example, Management on February 15, 2012 at 9:04 pm

I recommend that all leaders every so often read the What Will Matter poem by Michael Josephson.

It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of unselfishly serving and leading with character.

I’ve highlighted in bold and in color my favorite parts of the poem:

 

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

 

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

 

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

 

It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

 

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

 

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

 

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

 

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.

It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.


Great Leaders Grow

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Management on February 9, 2012 at 9:08 pm

This week, Ken Blanchard’s and Mark Miller’s book, Great Leaders Grow, hit the brick and mortar and online bookstores.

In honor of the book release I welcome guest blogger Ken Blanchard.

How to Evaluate Your Leadership Style

By Ken Blanchard, Co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life

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 least Mr. or Ms. Human Relations. Seldom do leaders give themselves low marks. Strangely enough, when the tables are turned and people are asked to rank their boss’s leadership style, we often find many supervisors graded as being adequate, merely OK, or at worst, office autocrats who depend heavily on the often-referenced “seagull management” technique as their sole line of attack — they leave their people alone until something goes wrong, and then they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump all over everyone, and fly out.

More often than not, we find that leaders lull themselves into thinking they are top-flight leaders because they think they use a supportive or coaching style, which someone told them are “good” leadership styles. Not too surprisingly, this isn’t the way they are seen by those in their department, office or store.

To get a true and accurate answer about the question above, it is necessary for you as a supervisor to honestly determine how your employees perceive your leadership style. These are the folks who know you best. They have first-hand experience with your leadership style and operate on their own perceptions about it. They are the best judges of your managerial effectiveness. However, getting an employee or subordinate to give his or her honest feedback on your leadership style is difficult. People fear being the messenger who will get shot for bearing bad news. Hence, they are naturally reluctant to be totally candid.

Employees are sharp observers. In the past, they may have gone to their leader and made an honest suggestion such as, “Ken, I think our Thursday afternoon meetings are a waste of time.” If the supervisor answers with an outburst by saying, “What do you mean a waste of time? Are you kidding? Those meetings are important,” it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one thing the leader doesn’t want to hear is the truth.

It is important to remember that when people you supervise tell you what they honestly think about your style of leadership, they’re really giving you a gift. When someone gives you a gift, what is the first thing you should say? “Thank you,” of course! Then it’s a very good idea to follow up by saying, “Is there anything else you think I should know?” When a person learns that you won’t become defensive or hostile when he or she gives you an honest evaluation about your style, you’ll find that you’ll be given many nuggets of truth which are extremely valuable. My advice would be to encourage people to give (feedback) at the office, and to give often!

Just remember, what you think about your own leadership style really doesn’t matter. In addition, there is no one correct style, nor is there a “good” or a “bad” style. Rather, style is judged by those immediately influenced by it. It’s your people’s response to your style that matters. If you are getting the right response consistently — high productivity and morale — then you’re doing just fine. If not, then perhaps it’s your style that needs changing, not your employees.

Ken Blanchard, co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life, is cofounder and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies. He is the author or coauthor of 50 books that have sold more than 20 million copies, including the iconic One Minute Manager®.

As originally published on “How We Lead.”  © 2012 Ken Blanchard, co-author of Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life


Honor MLK By Volunteering Or Leading A Team To Volunteer

In Company Culture, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leading By Example, Management, Volunteering on January 14, 2012 at 7:48 am

As the nation honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 16, volunteer or make the decision to volunteer in your community. King routinely asked “What are you doing for others,” and January 16th is the ideal day to ask yourself that question.

The federal holiday was first observed 25 years ago and in 1994 Congress designated it as a National Day of Service, inspired by King’s words, “everybody can be great because anybody can serve.”

You can turn to Volunteer Match to find volunteer opportunities right in your neighborhood or nearby surrounding area. Visit the web site, type in your zip code, and you will be presented with a variety of organizations seeking volunteers.

And, if you are a leader in the workplace, encourage your team members to volunteer in the community as individuals.  Or, organize team volunteer afternoons or evenings for your employees.


What Southwest Airlines Taught Us In 2011

In Company Culture, Customer Service, Employee Satisfaction, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Books, Leadership Quotes, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Listening Skills, Management, Motivating Employees on December 31, 2011 at 6:31 am

Southwest Airlines celebrated its 40th this year and was kind enough to share in its in-flight magazine 40 lessons it learned since 1971.  The lessons provide good tips for business leaders.

If you missed the full list, here are some of the highlights:

  • Invent your own culture and put a top person in charge of it.
  • A crisis can contain the germ of a big idea.
  • Simplicity has value.  For Southwest, simplicity means using 737s for most of its fleet, which makes maintenance more cost-effective and allows more efficient training for flight crews and ground crews.
  • Remember your chief mission.
  • Take your business, not yourself, seriously.
  • Put the worker first. For Southwest, that meant being the first U.S. airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, in 1974. Employees now own 13 percent of the airline.
  • The web ain’t cool, it’s a tool. Southwest was the first U.S. airline to establish a home page. By 2010, Southwest.com boasted more unique visitors  than any other airline, and ranked as the second largest travel site.
  • Get Green.  That means for Southwest embracing conservation.
  • Manage permanence.  Southwest knows what not to change, even when it’s managing change.
  • Keep the idea simple enough to draw on a napkin.
  • Never rest on your laurels.
  • It’s about customer service, not scalability.
  • Promote from within.
  • Recognize your luck.

One can learn a lot of Southwest! Thank You!


Year-end Advice For Leaders From EWF International

In Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Listening Skills, Management on December 17, 2011 at 10:23 am

Last year, Lynn Flinn of EWF International in Tulsa, OK wrote the following in her business’ newsletter. It’s so powerful I wanted to bring it back again this year as 2011 comes to a close.

So, here goes…Lynn’s year-end advice for leaders:

• Do something that you are afraid to do. Run through the fear rather than running away from it.

• Take a personal risk. Tell someone something you’ve always wished you’d said to them.

• Write a note to someone who inspires you but probably doesn’t know it.

• Pick one characteristic about yourself that you’d like to change and earnestly work on changing it.  It is really hard to change a behavior, but it is possible if you are aware, patient and persistent in making a change.

• Realize when you are not engaged and re-engage. Turn off the television, turn off the cell phone, and pay attention to the people around you.

• Smile and talk to strangers that you meet. It is amazing how much shorter a long line feels when you are talking to someone versus focusing on how long the line is.

• Meditate, pray, relax, exercise, hike, laugh or whatever brings you peace. Some people say they are just too busy to do these things, but taking time for self-renewal shows self-awareness, not selfishness.

• Take a trip somewhere that you’ve never been. It could even be a place you’ve never visited in your home town. How many experiences have you overlooked in your own town, because you just keep going to the same familiar places?

• Do something meaningful for a non-profit organization. Volunteers are the lifeblood of non-profit organizations. If everyone volunteers a few hours a week, think how much non-profits can accomplish.

• Don’t get stuck in the same old routine. Shake it up and do something different. Something as simple as taking a different route to work or going someplace new for lunch makes life a little more interesting.

Thanks Lynn for this great end-of-the-year advice.

EWF International provides professionally facilitated peer advisory groups for women business owners and executives.


Leadership Skills: Be Decisive; Find The Truth; Send A Thank You Note

In Company Culture, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Making Decisions, Management, Motivating Employees on December 11, 2011 at 10:59 am

Be decisive

A manager who can’t make a decision or who can’t make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager’s team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a “wrong” decision. These managers don’t necessarily request needless data, but simply just never made a decision.

Successful managers (true leaders) gather the data from their employees, make any necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision…knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white “right or “wrong,” but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers also know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.

Find The Truth

If you’re a parent of two children you already know that when the two are fighting and child #1 tells you what happened, you then ask child #2 what happened, and most often the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two children have told you.

Surprisingly, many managers, even when they are parents, don’t use this parenting “discovery” skill in the workplace. Instead, they often listen to only one side of a situation. Whether it is because of lack of interest or lack of time, they don’t proactively seek out the other side of the story.

The unfortunate result is those managers form incorrect perceptions that can often lead to poor decisions and/or directives.

So, the next time two employees are at odds, or when one department complains about another department within your organization, take the time to listen to all sides of the situation to discover the truth that’s in the middle.

Send A Written Thank You Note

Nearly all employees want to do both a good job and please their supervisor. When they succeed, send them a thank you for a job well done.

A short note (handwritten is particularly good) thanking them for a good job is extremely powerful. Particularly for new employees on your team. Or, for employees new to the workforce and early in their careers.

Include in your note a sentence regarding what they did especially well and how their specific action made a positive impact. Remember, be as specific as possible in what you write.

Be sure to send your note soon after the job was completed. If you wait too long (more than a week), the note will lose its impact.

Send your note in a way it can be easily saved by your employee. Even employees who have been on your team for a long time will likely save your note.

Finally, reserve your sending thank you notes for the big jobs, large projects, extra special work. If you send thank you notes too often they’ll lose their effect.

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Top 20 Leadership Books: What To Give First To A New Manager

In Effective Communications, Employee Engagement, General Leadership Skills, Hiring Great People, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Quotes, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Listening Skills, Management, Mentoring, Motivating Employees, Sales Management, Setting Goals, Strategic Planning, Team Building on December 10, 2011 at 6:53 am

Eighteen months ago, I posted the question “What’s The First Leadership Book You Would Give To a New Manager?” within the discussion forum for the LinkedIn group Linked 2 Leadership.

That question generated 603 comments and 690 recommendations.  Some people suggested more than one book.  Some during the course of the 18 months made the same book recommendations a couple times.  And, the group discussion continues to be one of the most active still today.

In early November 2011, group member Len White graciously culled through the comments using his company’s Symphony Content Analysis Software that assists with the organization, analysis, and reporting of themes contained in text data.

And here are the results:

·    412 different/unique books were recommended

·    The Top 20 recommended books, collectively, received 250 of the total recommendations

·    Two authors – Stephen R. Covey and John C. Maxwell each have two books in the Top 20

·    Group members recommended other things instead of giving a book about leadership to a new manager, such as:

o   Interviewing everyone in the company with whom they will directly work 

o   Giving a book about management first

o   Mentoring the person for a period of time before recommending a leadership book

And, unlike a question about “What is Your Favorite Leadership Book,” the question this time asked what is the first book you would give to a new manager.

The Top 20 Books are:

  1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
  2. Leadership and Self-Deception– Arbinger Institute
  3. The One Minute Manager– Kenneth H. Blanchard
  4. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership– John C. Maxwell
  5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team– Patrick Lencioni
  6. First Break All the Rules– Marcus Buckingham
  7. The Leadership Challenge– Jim Kouzes
  8. The First 90 Days– Michael Watkins
  9. How to Win Friends and Influence People– Dale Carnegie
  10. Good to Great– Jim Collins
  11. It’s Your Ship– Michael Abrashoff
  12. The Speed of Trust– Stephen R. Covey
  13. Developing the Leader Within You– John C. Maxwell
  14. Who Moved My Cheese– Spencer Johnson
  15. Don’t Bring it to Work– Sylvia Lafair
  16. Leaders Without Borders– Doug Dickerson
  17. Leadership and the One Minute Manager– Kenneth H. Blanchard
  18. On Becoming a Leader– Warren Bennis
  19. The Anatomy of Peace– Arbinger Institute
  20. The Art of Possibility– Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander

Within the Top 35 list of the book recommendations, you’ll find four more John C. Maxwell books, including:

·        The 360 Degree Leader

·        Developing the Leaders Around  You

·        Failing Forward

·        Leadership 101

The authors and leadership book publishers most discussed within the group forum have been:

·        Dale Carnegie

·        Jim Collins

·        Jim Kouzes

·        John C. Maxwell

·        Kenneth H. Blanchard

·        Marcus Buckingham

·        Michael Watkins

·        Patrick Lencioni

·        Stephen R. Covey

·        Arbinger Institute

Group discussion participants are clearly inspired by a wide variety of books – biographies, autobiographies, books backed by research and academia, books made famous by the popular press, books by motivation speakers, and books by professionals eager to share their personal and professional leadership success stories, tips and suggestions.

Finally, the book I recommended, The Leadership Test, by Timothy R. Clark made it within the Top 35.

Thanks to all the group members who made recommendations and to Tom Schulte, Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership, and the owner and moderator for the LinkedIn group, Linked 2 Leadership, which has 19,678 members.

Note:  Symphony Content Analysis Software is designed and published by Active Java.


Leaders: Time To Select Your New Year’s Resolutions For 2012

In General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Management on November 29, 2011 at 7:26 pm

Lose weight.  Exercise more.  Stop smoking.  Read more.  Shop less.  Volunteer.

Okay, so you’re likely already working on selecting your New Year’s resolution for your personal life. But, have you identified your New Year’s resolution for your workplace life?

If not, and you want to be a more effective leader for your team at work in 2012, select one or more of these 70 New Year’s resolutions for leaders:

  1. Don’t micromanage
  2. Don’t be a bottleneck
  3. Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
  4. Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
  5. Assess your company’s strengths and weaknesses at all times
  6. Conduct annual risk reviews
  7. Be courageous, quick and fair
  8. Talk more about values more than rules
  9. Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
  10. Constantly challenge your team to do better
  11. Celebrate your employees’ successes, not your own
  12. Err on the side of taking action
  13. Communicate clearly and often
  14. Be visible
  15. Eliminate the cause of a mistake
  16. View every problem as an opportunity to grow
  17. Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
  18. Praise when compliments are earned
  19. Be decisive
  20. Say “thank you” and sincerely mean it
  21. Send written thank you notes
  22. Listen carefully and don’t multi-task while listening
  23. Teach something new to your team
  24. Show respect for all team members
  25. Follow through when you promise to do something
  26. Allow prudent autonomy
  27. Respond to questions quickly and fully
  28. Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
  29. Give credit where credit is due
  30. Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
  31. Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
  32. Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
  33. Foster mutual commitment
  34. Admit your mistakes
  35. Remove nonperformers
  36. Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific
  37. Hire to complement, not to duplicate
  38. Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
  39. Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
  40. Show trust
  41. Encourage peer coaching
  42. Encourage individualism and welcome input
  43. Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
  44. Be willing to change your decisions
  45. Be a good role model
  46. Be humble
  47. Explain each person’s relevance
  48. End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
  49. Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
  50. Read leadership books to learn
  51. Set clear goals and objectives
  52. Reward the doers
  53. Know yourself
  54. Use job descriptions
  55. Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
  56. Share bad news, not only good news
  57. Start meetings on time
  58. Discipline in private
  59. Seek guidance when you don’t have the answer
  60. Tailor your motivation techniques
  61. Support mentoring – both informal and formal mentoring
  62. Don’t interrupt
  63. Ask questions to clarify
  64. Don’t delay tough conversations
  65. Have an open door policy
  66. Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
  67. Do annual written performance appraisals
  68. Insist on realism
  69. Explain how a change will impact employees’ feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
  70. Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible


9 Tips For Delivering Excellent Customer Service This Holiday Season

In Company Culture, Customer Service, Effective Communications, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Skills, Leading By Example, Management, Sales Management on November 19, 2011 at 12:02 pm

Leading a customer service team?  Have the team members use these 9 tips for delivering excellent customer service this holiday shopping season:

  1. Rely on winning words and soothing phrases.  A simple but sincere “Thanks for your patience” or “I’m listening” can go a long way toward defusing a holiday shopper’s frustration, anxiety, or panic. Develop a repertoire of short, easy to remember phrases around issues that are important to customers. Practice until the words come naturally.
  2. Communicate with silence. Remaining silent while your customers are talking is a basic courtesy, and nodding tells them you’re listening and understanding what you hear. An occasional “uh huh” or “I see” tells them you’re still listening without interrupting.
  3. Make customers feel seen. Making eye contact acknowledges that you see your customers as individuals. But there’s a balance to be struck here: staring can make your customers uncomfortable, too. Also keep in mind that eye contact is governed by specific cultural rules. A good rule to follow is to give as much as you get.
  4. Never underestimate the value of a sincere thank you. Thanking customers when they offer comments or suggestions says that you value their opinion. Thanking customers for complaining says that you value their loyalty. Customers who tell you they are unhappy are giving you a second chance. And that’s quite a gift.
  5. Use the well-placed “I’m Sorry.” Don’t assume that you’re not allowed to say “I’m sorry” when a snafu occurs. Actually, a sincere apology delivered in a timely and professional manner often heads off potential further problems. When you show your willingness to make sure your customers receive what they expect to receive, you relieve them of the need to even think about starting an argument.
  6. Never deny a customer’s problem. Problems are an undeniable part of the hectic, stressful holiday shopping season. And problems exist when the customer says they do. You can’t wish a problem away because it is something no reasonable person would be upset about, because it’s not your fault, or even because the customer made a mistake.
  7. Fix the person first. Real problem solving cannot happen until the issues are out on the table. And that requires getting past a customer’s emotional reaction. Breaking through the icy calm defenses of an upset customer is just as important as coaxing a “raging red” customer out of a temper tantrum.
  8. Listen and then probe for information. Customers, particularly upset customers, don’t always explain everything clearly or completely. Ask questions about anything you may not understand or need clarified. Then, when you feel you have identified and clearly grasped the problem, repeat it back to the customer for confirmation.
  9. Ask the customer for problem-solving help. Involving customers in generating solutions not only starts to rebuild the relationship, it gives them the feeling that your business really is interested in satisfying their needs. You’ll find that most customers bring a sense of fair play with them and will often expect far less than you’d think.

These tips are adapted from the book, Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, Fifth Edition by Performance Research Associates, Inc., Edited by Ann Thomas and Jill Applegate.


Book Review: Lead With Purpose

In Company Culture, General Leadership Skills, Leadership, Leadership Books, Leadership Education, Leadership Quotes, Leadership Skills, Leadership Training, Leading By Example, Management on November 8, 2011 at 10:06 pm

“Purpose is the why behind everything within an organization,” says author John Baldoni, of the new book, Lead With Purpose.  It hits the brick and mortar and online book stores this week.

Baldoni also believes that it is up to leaders to make certain that organizational purpose is understood and acted upon.  And, to harness the talents of their employees, leaders must recognize their responsibility to instill purpose in the workplace.

Other recommendations include:

  • Make purpose a central focus
  • Instill purpose in others
  • Make employees comfortable with ambiguity
  • Turn good intentions into great results
  • Make it safe to fail (as well as prevail)
  • Develop the next generation

According to Baldoni, purpose forms the backbone of what an organization exists to do; upon which you can build vision and mission.

To define an organization’s purpose, you must ask three questions:

1.  What is our vision — that is, what do we want to become?

2.  What is our mission — that is, what do we do now?

3.  What are our values–that is, what are the behaviors we expect of ourselves?

Some of my other favorite observations from the book are these two:

  • We follow leaders not because they bring us down, but because they lift our spirits with their attitude, words, and examples.
  • No job is complete without a review.  Look at what went right as well as what went wrong.  Understand that failure is not grounds for dismissal.

Lead With Purpose draws on extensive research, field work and interviews with dozens of organizational leaders.  It also includes the results of an exclusive 2010 leadership survey conducted for the American Management Association (AMA) by NFI Research.

Baldoni is a recognized leadership educator, coach and speaker, and the author of Lead by Example and Lead Your Boss.

Note:  Thanks to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of Lead With Purpose.

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