Leadership In And Around The Home

I write many articles concerning leadership in business and in the workplace. But reflecting on an incident I faced a while ago, I realise that leadership is just as important, if not more so, in and around the home. You see, the problem today is that most of us do not have a harmonious work/life balance. 

Most people seem to think that in order to be seen to work hard and deliver the demands of our job and our boss, it’s imperative we work longer hours. Consequently we neglect our home life. But your home life is your foundation for success at work and the moment something goes wrong at home, it completely upsets the balance. Take this particular morning, when my ceiling collapsed just as I’m about to leave for work at 6am, because of a leaking pipe underneath my bath!

If only I have taken the advice of my neighbour to shop around for the best home insurance. Frankly I was far too busy to spend time online obtaining home insurance quotes – I had a report to finish which needed to be presented to my boss at 9am the next morning. 

Now I’m in a total predicament. Try to fix the problem and miss my train, thereby missing the report deadline, or run out the door and spend the rest of the day worrying about the flood and not giving my presentation its fullest attention. Have you ever been in this position? Where an issue at home, percolates on your mind all day at work?

Today there are greater and greater demands being placed on us as managers and leaders.  How do we wrestle with getting the balance right and manage all those ‘small but important’ tasks around the home, ensuring we have both a happy home life and work life?

What does Simon Teague think?

Think Money says 'think of the future'

Think Money, a financial solutions company, has warned people to think about the future, especially if they're already struggling financially today.

The warning follows a report by Lloyds TSB which says many people's finances aren't in great shape. According to the report, as many as one in five individuals (19%) spend their entire income on essentials like their mortgage and utilities - with no money left over for discretionary items.

Moreover, around a quarter of people believe they'll be in a worse financial situation - with less discretionary income - in six months' time than they are now.

Think Money says that when millions of people in the UK need to make every penny count, managing your money well is especially important in case things did get tougher further down the line. Income rises were outstripped by rises in the cost of living throughout 2011. If you can't make your money stretch far enough now, how would you cope with less income?

A budget can identify areas of overspending and help you to gain a better understanding of where your money goes. However, cutting back isn't always enough. If you're in debt, it's possible you could lower your monthly payments to an affordable level with a debt management plan, although you would need to speak to a debt adviser to see if it's right for you. They may be able to advise on other methods to reduce your outgoings too, if that's appropriate.

Steve Backley OBE Supports Guide To Better Leadership

Olympic medalist Steve Backley OBE

As we draw nearer and nearer to the Olympics 2012, against the backcloth of significant turmoil in Europe and biting austerity measures, Athletes from the 205 nations of the World are focusing solely on their own and their teams performance and preparation. No matter who they are up against, each individual desires that elusive gold medal. And the minimum they will accept is to achieve a personal best - who could ask for more?

But how about those of us competing every day at work and in business. Are we training hard? Are we focusing only on giving it our all and delivering a winning performance every day?

In the athletics world, morale is currently at an all time high. People are reaching their peak. But what about in the business world? How is your staff morale?

Behind every great athlete is a highly motivational support structure and in particular a strong leader in the form of a coach and mentor.

Does your organisation have an equivalent structure? Does it have strong leadership? So that people can remain focused, committed and want to win and achieve their personal best EVERY DAY?

The answer sadly for the vast majority of companies, whether we are prepared to admit it or not, is NO!

Companies, business owners and HR managers are recognising the widening gap between the winning ethos of Olympic athletes and that of their own managerial teams.

Steve Backley OBE, Great Britains Silver medalist in the Javelin, offers motivational leadership training, along with Partner Roger Black. Details can be found here.

Simon Teague BA (Hons), Leadership Expert, formally from the corporate business world, offers a comprehensive low cost leadership toolkit to enable managers to self-develop the skills they need to be at the top of their game.

The endorsement from Steve Backley OBE of the Ultimate Leadership Guide, makes this toolkit worth its weight in gold...

See full report by Trevor Sturgess of the Kent Messenger business news

You can obtain your own personal copy of The Ultimate Leadership Guide here or directly from Amazon.

Global Leader

200,000,000 People... 

yes that’s 200 million people.

That’s how many people have joined the global workforce for the first time over the past decade. Technological advances have made it possible for workers living in regions that never before had access to global opportunities to join organisations across the world. These workers offer incredible promise including new outlooks and perceptions. But this talent can also be transient, bringing cultural diversity and high expectations which organisations either squander or harness.

2012 and beyond represent an exciting opportunity. But it comes with the challenge of understanding how to build global managers that can skilfully lead teams with very different cultural values and perspectives and to produce the results that organisations require.

The challenge of the next 10 years for leadership will be the ironing out of Eastern verses Western cultures. This has become even more pronounced with the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). 

Employees of western firms are often encouraged as part of the organisational values, to bring different perspectives to work by asking questions, pointing out issues and offering solutions. Successful Western companies operate an overt culture of continuous improvement through employee engagement. Consensus is highly valued and seen as a leadership skill. Employees are recognised and often rewarded for their insights in helping the organisation to move forward. Good managers encourage their teams with strap lines like ‘change for the better’ and ‘if you see something, say something’. In many strong organisations employees are empowered to try and solve problems first and then report how they fixed what they found.

In the BRIC, these values are not inherent in successful organisations. While the pursuit to make improvement and identify problems and make exist, the business culture preference is for employees, as subordinates, to hint at problems in the hope that management notices. There will be times when management miss the hint, leaving the problem unaccounted for.

In essence, the cultural difference lies in the western management assuming problems will be reported, discussed and solved, whereas the BRIC teams wait for leadership to notice problems and manage them.

As you can see, there are two completely different approaches required from leaders. As the global workforce shifts and integrates these two lines will become increasingly blurred and the job of the leader will become increasingly complex. This divergence highlights the necessity for business leaders to develop skills and capability to be globally and culturally savvy. 

The past few recessionary years which have taken place predominantly in the West have verified that western business methods are not the only ones that can bring success. Financial instability has silenced the rhetoric that capitalism is king, that western business schools have all the answers and that expatriate leadership is the solution to every emerging market organisations challenges.

As Europe and the US falls into great dismay financially, the BRIC, powered by what is an almost opposite business culture, are zooming ahead.

This new paradigm, combined with the reality that these global interactions are relatively new and growing more intense every day, has left a vacuum of leadership, because most firms assume employees will just ‘figure it out’.

A decade ago, being assigned to a foreign team would require extensive training, but now, time and speed demand that people  ‘hit the ground running’ and too many organisations are seeking a quick fix by sending someone in from the West to the East or visa-versa. The cost in terms of lost productivity and the consequent movement of human capital is unseen, but significant.

The good news today is that we are experiencing and intense worldwide effort to engage across business cultures, and the combination of technology and leadership coaching allows everyone to engage any-time and any-where in the world, with a degree of understanding of each others issues.

10 years ago the amount of connectivity and accessibility to individuals around the world was mere theory. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, high capability smart phones and cloud services have all dramatically changed our world. 

We had no idea this pace of change was going to happen. And we lost sight of the power of the individual. As people such as the late Steve Jobs charged through life to make ‘impossible dreams’ a reality for us all, our lack of predicative abilities have left our workforce ill prepared for the magnitude of global interactions required for real business and team transformation.

The way to harness this opportunity – to really live the vision and promise of integrated globalisation is to build a team of global managers that can deliver for your organisation, with a dynamic capability for inspiration, innovation and vision. Without these leaders, business transformation is only a dream. 

Author: Simon Teague, Leadership-expert

With extracts from:

Moore, B. (2011). Global managers for a Globalised World. Business Transformation: The transforming world of business , 62-65.

Golden time - breakfast for leaders

The cruicial role for leaders today is to create the conditions in which individual managers and newly developing talent can thrive.

The start point is to have a clear head, focused strategy of supporting people to develop and grow and a clear vision of future success. This all comes through planning and putting aside quality time to THINK.

This webinar by Peter Baxter gives you real insight into how to set aside Golden time to enhance your effectiveness.

Calm before the storm

Just when you thought the climate was changing and the sky is the limit, mother nature showed she is ultimately the one in charge. The Icelandic volcano has been bubbling away under the surface for years and it was time to remind the world of her existence, in the form of a spectacular PR exercise!!

It may not have escaped your notice that things have also been very quiet on this blog (and although you might think I am being somewhat arrogant comparing my impact on the world with a volcano!), but I have been bubbling away under the surface, preparing my campaign and soon it will erupt onto google. Why?

Well ultimately because I want to be able to bring you something that is actually useful. Something that will help you cut through all the rhetoric and day to day bombardment of information, with one goal in mind - to help you become a more effective leader.

We would all agree there is so much incredible, constant change out there. Many of your competitors are falling by the way side - mainly because of poor leadership skills. It's time now to gain a stranglehold on your marketplace, enhance your brand and win the day.

In the next 3 weeks, I will be launching a content rich, information free, 'helpsite' specifically designed for you to become the ultimate leader, at work, in business, at home and in your school or community. Watch this space for the transformation...

Meeting Of The Minds - Teague & Covey

Success comes from structure. Every successful individual and organisation has become so through organised, repeatable actions which have moved them forward at a faster rate than their peers and competitors.


Too many people and companies are focusing on old style improvement techniques. In leadership for example they focus on competencies and seek to improve attitudes and behaviours.


If you want to make minor improvements work on attitudes and behaviours. If, however, you want to make quantum transformation, work on paradigms. A paradigm is a mental model, an assumption or a route map to an ambitious destination.


We are gradually waking up to the fact that every single one of us not only has the right, but also has the capability of reaching our full potential and that potential can be to reach ‘impossible’ goals.


Since the beginning of time we have seen a significant shift in human evolution. We have travelled through the ‘hunter/gatherer age; the farming age; the industrial age and now we are firmly in the knowledge age, where the true power of the human mind is being discovered and we are unleashing a rate of progress faster than ever before believed possible.


Consequently we have achieved more in the last 5 years than in the previous 50, more in the previous 50 than the preceding 500; and more in that 500 than the previous 5000. At a time when the top 10 in demand jobs in 2010, did not even exist in 2004, one has to wonder what will be the next stage of our evolution. And how quickly will it be upon us?


The sad fact is that 90% of people (particularly those ensconced in corporate ‘bubbles’) are still adopting ways of managing, doing and thinking that belong in the industrial age.


Dr Covey highlights 5 fundamental traits belonging to each era:


Industrial age

Job Descriptions and competency profiles
Employees and subordinates
Hierarchical and Controlling mindsets
Focus on Developing weaknesses and performance plans
Managing things and tasks that don’t have the power to choose.


Knowledge Age



Unique Contributors

Partners/associates

Collaborative, synergistic, tribal (Body, mind, heart and spirit mindsets)

Unleashing talent. Focusing on strengths only.

Leading people who have the power of choice.




Leadership, in particular, is no longer about control. It’s about unlocking an individual’s ultimate power within themselves, unleashing their talent, enabling them to reach their own worthwhile goals and reaching their full potential. The leader is now a supporter, helping to clear a path for the individual to explore.


Supervision is an obsolete concept. If it continues, people leave either by choice or because the company’s strategy is placing its own performance into decline and therefore people have to leave.


Today it’s essential to create an environment where people are empowered. The leader will have tapped into their ‘voice’, playing the team to their strengths in a culture where everyone believes in their own worth and potential and can nurture growth physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.


Leaders do whatever is necessary to help people magnify their own potential.
This is a paradigm shift - one that’s essential to success.


So if you are now looking for answers as to how to achieve such a seismic shift you don’t need to look any further than these three real life examples:


· Country
· Company
· Individual


Country:


When Ghandi captured the imagination of 200 million people was it through the use of force? Did he have an army of men at his disposal?


No. He possessed a unique quality of humility and persistence that won over men’s hearts and inspired them through visualisation of an India that could prosper through internal collaboration, synergy and mutual care.


In short, the people began to dream impossible dreams. And now they are fast becoming one of the emerging global leaders in the knowledge era:


· The top 28% of people in India with the highest IQ’s exceed the total population of North America
· They have more honours graduates than the total population of all the graduates in the UK and USA put together!
· In the time Dr Covey was on stage 60 babies were born in the USA, 244 in China and 351 in India.
· In India they know, understand and apply family values that transcend into workplace ethics and entrepreneurial traits.


The world will be a very different place in 5 years time thanks to the vision of one man.


Company:


Take a look at the Central American small airline company Copa Airlines. A business transformed by setting out a clear purpose and goal from the bottom up. In 1991 they ran just 8 routes and less than 50% of their planes arrived on time.


They asked their customers what was the one most important thing above all else that they wanted. The answer – “to leave and arrive on time, every time”.


Every associate of the company was asked how they thought such an ‘impossible’ goal could be achieved. Every single ‘transaction’ from the initial purchase of tickets, loading of baggage, finding and checking in every passenger, right up to the time when they leave the baggage reclaim area happy and stress free, was measured. If you can’t measure it you can’t improve it says Jorge Garcia, Vice President of the Commercial Department.


Their stats speak for themselves:


· A culture where everyone knows the vision and no 1 goal is to be the best for on time arrival.
· Synergy, whereby everyone knows the role they have to play and works together to achieve the desired outcome for passengers.
· Significant business growth going from 8 routes to 36 and on time arrivals from below 50% to the current industry leading figure of 91.5%
· Average aircraft turnaround times down from 58 minutes to 35 minutes – the fastest in the industry.
· An unrivalled reputation for reliability.


Everyone has become accountable for the culture. The sandwich is out!


Individual


I recently saw Christopher Howard in action at the Millionaire Entrepreneur Bootcamp at the O2 Arena. Here is a man who has made it from the depths of financial despair to the ‘big time’ through the power of right thinking, using philosophies which have unleashed the power of the mind within. This power exists in each and every one of us and has been written about by countless philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Einstein, Haanel and Napoleon Hill.


Originally only available to the few, these earth shattering truths are being explored by millions of entrepreneurs through books like The Secret. Strangely, those in corporations are being shielded from its power. If they only knew of the opportunity and potential, they would demand a shift towards knowledge leadership, which staid old HR managers are ignorant, unprepared or too afraid to deliver.


Chris has a goal in life to help thousands of people to find a way of unlocking their full potential. He takes you on a journey of discovery to see the bigger picture and the crucial role you have to play. Exploring our earliest memories of things we did well and as a result loved doing. Finding the structure that inspires us to stretch, excel and discover our ‘voice’.


Summary


Dr Covey offers the following words to sum up the situation many people are experiencing as they seek to find their ‘voice’ and their own personal fulfilment in the knowledge society. Maslow refers to it as self actualisation. I call it simply achieving your hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Knowledge Age

Overall Philosophy - Unleash Talent
Leadership - Mentor and coach. Servant leader
Culture - Complimentary team. Orchestra.
People - Primary asset. Leveraged. Voiced.
Motivation - Internally inspired
Management - Culture is responsible for results

So, how possible is it to change a culture, both that of an individual damaged by ‘failures’, a corporation stuck in its ways or a country spoilt by bad decisions?

This change in culture can happen very quickly. Remember the human mind can achieve anything it sets out to achieve. Nothing is impossible – but it all begins with you.

I met Dr Covey and made sure he signed the copy of his new book entitled The 8th Habit. Perhaps this would be a good starting point for us all.