Leverage Your Leadership Skills and Become a Better Leader

What’s the core of leadership? I have often wondered about this. Like everyone, I have worked for people with the capacity to inspire and energize an army, and I have also worked for people who would have been better off in a cave far from civilization. I read an interesting quote awhile ago that has remained with me, and I believe it defines the true core of leadership.

“Being a manager or a leader is a privilege. It’s an honor to have others respect your abilities enough to allow you to lead them. It’s an honor to have others trust you to guide them and support them as you work together.” Liz Weber, the Dragon Lady of Leadership Accountability, shared this quote in her new book: Something Needs to Change Around Here, The Five Stages to Leveraging Your Leadership.

Ask yourself, how often – between meetings, conferences, projects, employee reviews, etc. – have you considered being a leader or manager to be a privilege? Ever? Be honest when answering. This is exactly my point. If more managers and leaders considered the process of supervising, guiding, teaching, training, mentoring, and managing others as a PRIVILEGE, our workplaces would run more smoothly, and employees would be more engaged.

You’ll have to read Liz’s book to gain insights into the specifics of her five stages to leverage leadership, but here are some of her key themes:

• Just because you have the title “manager” or “leader,” it doesn’t mean you can lead.
• Employees don’t care about your title, they care about what you can do.
• Until you free up your time and some of your mental capacity to focus on “what’s next,” it’s terribly difficult to become an effective leader.
• When leaders lead, managers manage, and doers do, everyone knows what they’re all working toward.
• In order for an organization’s strategic projects to morph and evolve, the leadership needs to grow, evolve, and let go…If you don’t let go, others can’t do.

As Liz Weber writes at the end of the book, “Someone needs to change around here…you.” So, I challenge all the leaders out there reading this post, alter your mindset and behavior, and then watch your employees. You just might notice a difference.

For more details: http://www.wbsllc.com/blog

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/lizwebercmc

Connect on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LeadOrLeave

Find Your Focus - It’s Easier Than You Think

Strategic advisor, management consultant, and blogger Peter Bregman has written a book that will clearly resonate with everyone who wishes that there were more than 24 hours in a day. He blogs regularly for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes magazines and also provides commentary for CNN and public radio – so he understands this wish in today’s era of instant communication and too many priorities. In his words, “To get the right things done, choosing what to ignore is as important as choosing where to focus.”

Bregman’s book, 18 Minutes: Finding Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, should be required reading for all new hires and also provided to longer-term employees on their anniversary dates. Imagine a typical day at the office. After arrival and start-up of the computer or laptop, you open your email only to find 200 emails in your inbox. Then, the phone rings, and your boss wants you to completely change your projects for the day. Then, the network crashes. Well, you get it – just like the tagline for Calgon beauty products that has become a cult phrase, “Take me away.”

The book provides secrets to cut through the clutter and distractions so that you can focus and accomplish your objectives. Here are some:

• Regular rest stops are useful interruptions.
• Don’t settle for being less than you are. It won’t serve others and it won’t serve you.
• Know what outcome you seek.
• Recover your passion – think about what you love doing.
• Failure is inevitable, useful, and educational. Just don’t give up.
• The time to judge your failures and successes is never.
• Plan your day ahead so you can fly through it, successfully maneuvering and moving toward your intended destination.
• Reduce your overwhelm by putting your tasks in an organized list.
• If you really want to get something done, decide when and where you are going to do it.
• Never leave things on your to-do list for more than three days. They’ll just get in the way of what you really need to get done.
• The right kind of interruption can help you master your time and yourself. Keep yourself focused and steady by interrupting yourself hourly.
• Spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect. These minutes are the key to making tomorrow even better than today.
• The world doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards productivity.

And now, here’s a breakdown of Peter’s 18 Minutes:

• Step 1 – 5 Minutes: Your morning minutes – plan ahead.
• Step 2 – 1 Minute Every Hour (8 Minutes): Refocus – manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.
• Step 3 – 5 Minutes: Your evening minutes – review how the day went.

According to Peter, the key is to add this 18 minute review to your routine EVERYDAY. “This particular ritual may not help you swim the English Channel while towing a cruise ship with your hands tied together. But it may just help you leave the office feeling productive and successful.” Now, who wouldn’t want that?

For more information, visit: http://peterbregman.com

Follow Peter on Twitter: https://twitter.com/peterbregman

Like Peter on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterBregmanAdvisor

Connect on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/peterbregman18

Aspiring Leaders: Define Your Purpose and Build A Strong Personal Brand

Selena Rezvani wrote an interesting book entitled, The Next Generation of Women Leaders, What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School. While the book targets women, there are some important lessons within the book that resonate with all aspiring leaders, male or female.

While it's important to discover and define one’s purpose, an aspiring leader must hold onto his or her core beliefs and spirit. A successful example is Maxine Clark, the CEO (or Chief Executive Bear in company-speak) of Build-A-Bear (follow on Twitter). Clark saw an opportunity in 1997 and founded the company. Today, there are more than 400 stores worldwide as a result of her idea of building personalized stuffed animals.

In order to define one’s purpose, Rezvani suggested that the following questions will help:

• If you had unlimited power, how would you use it?
• What did you love doing as a child?
• What do you love doing in your spare time?
• When do people ask you for help?
• What is the single biggest barrier preventing you from leading?
• How would your professional biography read if you had the perfect career?
• When you get compliments at work, which ones are the most satisfying?
• Is there a job you love so much that you would do it for free?
• What work activities have you engaged in where time seems to fly?
• If you were on the cover of TIME magazine, what would the cover caption say?

According to Rezvani, building a personal brand is also critical for all leaders. As a brand marketing professional, I totally agree and assist others to promote their strengths and build their personal brands. In the words of Tom Peters, “Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in…our most important job is to be the head marketer for the brand called You.”

If you want to be inspired and gain some useful leadership tips, check out Rezvani’s book on her website and follow on Twitter.

Click here to read a previous blog post entitled, “Who do you represent: your company or your individual brand?

Click here to read Tom Peters’ article in Fast Company that, while written in 1997, is just as timely today entitled, “The Brand Called You.”

The Progression of Social Media from Real-Time Conversations to Mobile Devices

Please welcome Jamie Turner to my blog. Jamie is the Chief Content Officer for the 60 Second Marketer, an online magazine that provides tools, tips, and tutorials on the newest trends in marketing. Over the past 20 years, Jamie has helped a myriad of companies including AT&T, Cartoon Network, CNN, Motorola, and The Coca-Cola Company to grow their sales and revenues through persuasive marketing. Check out his website, follow on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook. Recently, I discussed the impact of social media on marketing with Jamie and would like to share the highlights.

How has social media changed marketing?

JAMIE TURNER: There are two primary ways that social media has changed marketing. The first is that the consumer now expects the brand to have a dialogue with them. In the past, brands had a monologue with consumers, but today, consumers expect brands to respond to their questions, comments, and complaints via social media. The second way that things have changed is that brands are expected to be completely transparent with their actions and behaviors. In the old days, brands could get away with questionable behavior. But today, consumers watch their every move, and as a result, are quick to Tweet, blog, or post an update to Facebook.

What three questions should a business ask before jumping into social media?

JAMIE TURNER: There are three simple questions to ask before you dive in:

[1] Is social media right for our business? Surprisingly, the answer is sometimes “no.”

[2] Can we devote appropriate resources to this campaign?

[3] Are we going to track and measure our campaign?

If the answer to all three is “yes,” then you’re good-to-go.

How do you measure the effectiveness of a social media campaign?

JAMIE TURNER: One, track and measure your traffic via social media, which is relatively simple in the digital world. And two, understand the concept of Customer Lifetime Value, which is the amount of revenue the average customer generates for your business during the average time that he/she buys your brand. If you understand Customer Lifetime Value, then you can calculate how much money you have spent using social media to acquire a new customer. By using these calculations, you can easily measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign. You can download my presentation on this topic at http://www.slideshare.net/JamieTurner1313/social-media-roi-how-to-calculate-your-success.

What are your favorite websites that focus on social media?

JAMIE TURNER: I’m a big fan of Google’s YouTube channel because the videos are extremely well-produced and provide great value to the viewer. I’m also a fan of Social Media Examiner.

 

How will the social media landscape change over the next 12 months?

JAMIE TURNER: The big change will be that more people will access their social media campaigns via mobile devices. I talk about this in great detail in my new book, Go Mobile. Mobile is going to transform the way we do business – it has already started, and believe it or not, mobile is not that hard for marketers to manage.