CorpU Weekly Digest: Leadership Development (2012-August-20)

CorpU Weekly Digest: Leadership Development (2012-August-20)

Here are this week's headlines in leadership development: 

• Forces impacting leaders and their ability to be effective in their roles
• At a time when organizations are looking for new ways to build high-performance teams, perhaps leaders should be considering a family approach to business that emphasizes trust and values
• 10 fatal flaws that contribute to a leader's failure

 Forces impacting leaders and their ability to be effective in their roles 

 Paradigm Learning’s latest leadership research, conducted in 2012 by Dr. Pat Gill-Webber, identified forces in the business world that are impacting leaders and their ability to be effective in their roles. In this blog, the author has highlighted five trends:

• Globalization, talent diversity, technological disruption and marketplace complexity are making it imperative for leaders to deal with change and ambiguity daily. Managing change when it can’t be ignored is no longer sufficient. Leveraging constant change is the key

• Organizational responses to the recent recession and its aftermath—like cost cutting, layoffs, and push-backs on risk taking—can jeopardize or openly conflict with the need for business innovation and flexibility. Leaders must be able to manage in the face of these conflicting realities.

• People are leaving, or considering leaving, unsatisfying jobs that they held onto during recessionary times. As the economy improves, the leader’s role in attracting, keeping and developing talent is more important than ever.

• Increasingly, organizations expect their leaders/managers to participate in work that benefits the common good. Getting involved in local community causes and championing green initiatives, for example, are not only the right things to do—they can have a significant impact on company success by engaging employees and customers in profitable new ways.

• More virtual teams, fewer formal hierarchies and interdepartmental dependency have replaced traditional environments. Collaborative models of leadership are the norm. Business leaders need the skills and motivation to cooperate outside silos and manage employees in nontraditional settings.

Read The Insider blog “Top Business Forces Impacting Leadership Effectiveness”

At a time when organizations are looking for new ways to build high-performance teams, perhaps leaders should be considering a family approach to business that emphasizes trust and values  

 According to a McKinsey report, one-third of all companies in the S&P 500 index are family-controlled, and many are outperforming their competitors.  There is clearly something to say about running a business with a family approach.   Not all of them are perfect, but that is not the point. Taking a family approach means establishing a foundation of trust and a cultural promise to unite as one; to perform with purpose with the healthier whole in mind.   In the end, it’s about leadership and the ability to manage the moving parts and sustain momentum. Here are five ways a leader can build a family environment to achieve excellence in the workplace: 1) Give Your Team a Sense of Ownership; 2) Everyone Must Protect One Another; 3) Instill Values to Enable a Trusted Culture; 4) Encourage People to Speak-up; and 5) Develop a Succession Plan. Read Glenn Llopis’ (Founder of the Glenn Llopis Group and the Center for Hispanic Leadership) Forbes bog “5 Ways Leaders Must Build a Family Environment to Achieve Excellence”

10 fatal flaws that contribute to a leader's failure

Research conducted by Jack Zenger (CEO at Zenger/Folkman) and Joseph Folkman (President at Zenger/Folkman) suggests that the offensive actions so often associated with being a bad boss make up less than 20% of the behavior that actually defines the worst bosses. After analyzing the behavior of 30,000 managers, as seen through the eyes of some 300,000 of their peers, direct reports, and bosses on 360-degree evaluations, they found that the sins of the bad boss are far more often those of omission, not commission. That is, bad bosses are defined not so much by any appalling things they do as by certain critical things they don't do. Here's the list in order, from the most to the least fatal:

1. Failure to inspire, owing to a lack of energy and enthusiasm
2. Acceptance of mediocre performance in place of excellent results
3. A lack of clear vision and direction
4. An inability to collaborate and be a team player
5. Failure to walk the talk
6. Failure to improve and learn from mistakes
7. An inability to lead change or innovate owing to a resistance to new ideas
8. A failure to develop others
9. Inept interpersonal skills
10. Displays of bad judgment that leads to poor decisions

Read Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman HBR blog “Are You Sure You're Not a Bad Boss?”