Best Practices/Mindsets for Strong Leadership
Keith has a tip on the blog today from Marilyn Carlson Nelson, former CEO of Carlson, on how to be a great leader in the workplace:
"Be certain that you want to “do” as much as you want to “be.” You might aspire to be a Director, Vice President or even a CEO, but it’s important to know what the job entails beyond the prestige of the title and that you are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to fulfill the job. During the time you are in that role, you may not have much work/life balance. Take responsibility for that choice. High performance roles require sacrifice. After all, when was the last time you heard an Olympic athlete complain about work/life balance?"
I think you could say that Marilyn's tip is about being realistic about what kind of commitment leadership success will require.
Any one else want to share great tips and best practices for leadership?
"Be certain that you want to “do” as much as you want to “be.” You might aspire to be a Director, Vice President or even a CEO, but it’s important to know what the job entails beyond the prestige of the title and that you are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to fulfill the job. During the time you are in that role, you may not have much work/life balance. Take responsibility for that choice. High performance roles require sacrifice. After all, when was the last time you heard an Olympic athlete complain about work/life balance?"
I think you could say that Marilyn's tip is about being realistic about what kind of commitment leadership success will require.
Any one else want to share great tips and best practices for leadership?
Tags: best_practices, leadership, success
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sana Ahmed on -
I think this is the greatest tip for leadership I can get:
"Be certain that you want to “do” as much as you want to “be.”
Thanks for sharing that with us Sara!
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Permalink Reply by Stever Robbins on -
Bill Bain created one of the most successful consulting firms around and never worked more than a 40-hour week. He ruthlessly adhered to the "80/20 rule" and used it to produce both high achievement and high life balance.
Don't believe leadership positions require work/life sacrifice. Some do, some don't. People say "work smart," but rarely know how to do it. For many—CEOs included—"work smart" actually manifests in behavior as "work long hours."
(An interesting follow-on question is... how do you know if you're actually working smart?)
P.S. I agree with most of Marilyn's comment, by the way. Far too many people want glamorous/powerful jobs without taking the time to understand what the job is or whether they would actually want it.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Golway on -
There seems to be a focus here on equating leadership with being part of the senior management of a company. Marilyn's quote certainly promotes that philosophy.
There is no such thing as a high performance role. Every role in an organization needs to be viewed as high performant. Likewise every role needs to have a level of accountablility and empowerment.
Leadership isn't about a role in a company, its about what you do with the role and how you influence the people around you. One does not need to be CEO to provide leadership within a company.
Nor does one need to create an imbalance in their life to be high performing. High performance can only be sustained through high performing teams where everyone contributes, is empowered to lead in some way and is accountable to the team.
Too often I see people in senior positions who do not empower their teams, micro-manage and need to spend twice as much time to accomplish their goals. Unfortunately this leads to lower performance among the team and less balance in everyone's life.
Just some thoughts.....
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Permalink Reply by Brent P. Newhall on -
Everyone leads every day. (or can)
When you invite a friend out to lunch, you're practicing leadership. When you ask folks in a meeting "So what's the next action for us?" you're practicing leadership.
Leadership is a matter of setting a goal, and bringing other people to that goal. To do that, you need to appreciate other people, and find out how to bring them around to assisting on your goal. And the best way to do *that* is to listen.
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Permalink Reply by Steven Harper on -
Great comments. I agree.
In addition:
The best discussion on Leadership and the mindset I have seen is from Colin Powell. This is a presentation he made http://www.slideshare.net/guesta3e206/colin-powells-leadership-pres... My favorite lesson is "You don't know what you can do until you try"
I believe that "Leadership" comes in all forms and it can be from the bottom up. We started being more diligent about recycling when my 10 year old daughter asked why we threw away the milk jugs when they could be turned into hundreds of other items. I didn't know the answer. We are frankly just a typical busy household... Now we take great pains to recycle as much as possible, and the kids take the recycling out. So who is the leader in that scenario? My daughter lead the family, but with leadership comes responsibility, so she is now responsible for making it happen. I think is an example of "do" not just "be".
In companies I have seen many people complain about the "culture" yet do nothing to change it. Leadership is is believing in something, doing something about it, and having the character to help others "do" as much as you.
My humble opinion ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Tom Golway on
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Great example and comments!
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Permalink Reply by sudhakar on
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Good comments.
Also once, one is a leader in his/her own mould, there is an additional and an very important job - "to produce leaders not just followers" (Quoted by Ralph Nader I think)
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Permalink Reply by Maxine Zdebiak Karchie on -
Truly strong leaders, hire smart, they get to know about the people that they are hiring and only hire experts in the fields that they are weaker in. A strong leader networks, is highly focused and delegates to those experts that they have hired or he/she knows can help them (NEA). They trust their staff and allow them to do what they are best at. This allows work/life balance for those leaders who have learned to work smart. The others just need to read NEA and develop focus techniques in order to create balance; it's their choice. Maxine
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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Blaine on -
I definitely agree with recruiting experts in the areas of weakness. Leaders do not have to take credit for everything. They can delegate and praise the people who performed well and contributed to the success. Therefore a good leader can also be humble.
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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Blaine on
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I think putting thoughts to action is one of the cornerstones of success. She says to make sure you are doing as much as you are being, and to me that can translate into "don't just think about what you can do, but DO what you can do." I think producing action is one of the most challenging things to do in life because it requires a healthy mindset which includes internal ingredients such as high self-esteem, confidence, and direction as well as external ingredients which include love and encouragement from friends and family(i.e. a support group).
When a person has a good mixture of these internal and external aspects, then he or she is more equipped to put their thoughts to action. I think Keith talks about relationships with others being a foundational criteria for success. This would pertain to the external ingredients that I mentioned. I know I myself need to improve both the internal and external requirements for successful action. Perhaps being a part of this community can help me with that.
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