A friend shared with me a spot-on article by Geoffrey James the other day. In it, James explains the difference between averages bosses and extraordinary bosses. He demonstrates why the best managers have a fundamentally different understanding of workplace, company, and team dynamics.

His insights are based on his interviews of some of the most successful CEOs. Read his article in its entirety. The eight points he explains are:

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.

2. A company is a community, not a machine.

3. Management is service, not control.

4. My employees are my peers, not my children.

5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

6. Change equals growth, not pain.

7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation.

8. Work should be fun, not mere toil.

James writes the “Sales Source” column on Inc.com, the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog, which features the best ideas from dozens of sales experts and executives, along with James’ unique take on the business world.

Here are five important questions you, as a manager and leader, should ask during employee performance reviews:

1. What have I done to help – or hinder – your job performance?
2. What can I do in the next review period to help you achieve/improve?
3. What conditions here enable you – or make it hard – to do your best work?
4. What do you want most from your job?
5. How can I help you reach your career goals?

I speculate that most employees have never heard most of these questions from their supervisors on a consistent basis during performance reviews.

Thanks to Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell for these questions — just some of their great advice from their book, The Essential HR Handbook.

Here are some tips that I really like from Roy Vaden’s new book, Take The Stairs:

• Do the hard stuff first.  When you conquer the most difficult tasks first, it gives you a confidence that carriers you throughout the day.
• Practice positive self-talk.
• Stop fixing on the here and now, and think about the big picture.
• Approach all decisions with the mindset of “how.”  Asking how increases your commitment, thereby increasing your chances of success.
• Put your self-esteem into your work habits instead of your results.  To keep yourself motivated, take pride in sticking to your new habits, rather than looking for immediate results.
• Develop the habit of acting in the face of fear.  The best cure for fear is action.

Thanks to Rory for sharing with me an advance copy of his book, Take The Stairs — 7 Steps to Achieving True Success.

I really like these 10 guiding business principles that San Antonio, TX headquartered insurance company USAA lives by:

• Exceed customer expectations
• Live the Golden Rule (treat others with courtesy and respect)
• Be a leader
• Participate and contribute
• Pursue excellence
• Work as a team
• Share knowledge
• Keep it simple (make it easy for customers to do business with us and for us to work together)
• Listen and communicate
• Have fun

And, when it comes to providing the ultimate in customer service, keep in mind that too many companies don’t make it simple for their customers to do business with them.  Is it easy for your customers to:

• Buy from you?
• Make returns?
• Get pricing and terms?
• Receive timely responses to their e-mails?
• Quickly get answers when phoning your company?

You can find more examples of companies with impressive guiding principles in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees.

In Leigh Branham’s terrific book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, he quotes these sound insights from Dee Hock, the founder and former CEO of Visa:

• Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience.

Hock explains that:

• Without integrity, motivation is dangerous
• Without motivation, capacity is impotent
• Without capacity, understanding is limited
• Without understanding, knowledge is meaningless
• Without knowledge, experience is blind

She concludes that experience is easy to provide and quickly put to use by people with all the other qualities.

Some of my favorite parts of Douglas Conant’s and Mette Norgaards’ 2011 book, TouchPoints, are these lessons for leaders:

• You need to have dual vision.  You need to be able to address the most pressing need and do it in a way that makes your employees more capable and ready to take on the next issue.
• No leader can succeed by being only tough-minded or only tender-hearted.  The perfect balance is to be both tough-minded on the issue and tender-hearted with people.
• Leading with heart doesn’t mean you always decide in favor of the individual.  It just means that when you need to make a tough-minded decision, you are acutely aware of how it will affect the people involved.
• The people who are the most committed to mastering their craft are often the most humble.  That is because, instead of comparing themselves to others, they are moved by an inner vision of what they might achieve.
• Ask often, “How can I help?”  Doing so at the start of an interaction opens up space for people to voice their ideas, concerns and viewpoints.

Inspirational leadership wisdom came awhile back from Bahram Akradi, the CEO of Life Time Fitness.

From that health club’s monthly fitness magazine, Experience Life, Akradi says:

• Once we get comfortable in our habitual patterns, we may fail to notice when they have outworn their useful purpose, or when new alternatives might serve us better.
• Once you’ve encountered a second way of seeing things, you’re more likely to entertain the possibility of a third and fourth way, too.
• Do something that makes you just a little bit uncomfortable–and that renders you a little more awake.

Thanks Akradi for encouraging us to break out from predictability.

If you are a leader already engaging with an executive coach, or contemplating engaging one, here are four ways to make  your coaching experience a success, as reported in a relatively recent issue of Fortune magazine:

1. Find the right match.  Find someone to push and challenge you.  To encourage you and to hold you accountable.  Be sure the person you engage with is a person you can trust and can talk to easily.
2. Be aware of your company’s expectations.  If your boss hired the coach to work with you, make sure your boss, and your boss’s boss, share their expectations and hoped-for outcomes with you.  Then, make sure your coach knows that those things belong at the top of your goals list.
3. Get your money’s worth.  Work with your coach on issues or questions that have a direct correlation to success in your job.
4. Be sure your coach sees you in action.  Allow your coach to observe you interacting with your peers or direct reports.  This also gives your colleagues a sense that you’re seen as valuable and promotable.  And, it shows them that you’re working on improving yourself.

I really like these motivating and inspiring quotes from a 2011 issue of Men’s Health magazine:

The best way to predict the future is to invent it — Alan Kay

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty — Winston Churchill

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody — Bill Cosby

The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fall — Vince Lombardi

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman’s book, The 11 Laws of Likability.  They are all about:

• what to do and what not to do to be a leader who’s an effective listener:

Do:

• Maintain eye contact
• Limit your talking
• Focus on the speaker
• Ask questions
• Manage your emotions
• Listen with your eyes and ears
• Listen for ideas and opportunities
• Remain open to the conversation
• Confirm understanding, paraphrase
• Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile)
• Ignore distractions

Don’t:

• Interrupt
• Show signs of impatience
• Judge or argue mentally
• Multitask during a conversation
• Project your ideas
• Think about what to say next
• Have expectations or preconceived ideas
• Become defensive or assume you are being attacked
• Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language
• Listen with biases or closed to new ideas
• Jump to conclusions or finish someone’s sentences