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In This Issue
Seven Deadly
Sins of
Leadership
Developing
Leaders - Fast Track and Feedback
Self-knowledge Provides the Opportunity
for Leadership Development
Book
Review
Best Sites
for Workforce/HR
Information |
Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership
While
the self-help section of the library has
numerous volumes on leadership and how
to do the right thing, sometimes knowing
what the wrong things are and how to
avoid them can be just as valuable. Here
is our list of the “seven deadly sins of
leadership.”
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Assuming your employees know
the company’s objectives and
purpose. So you and your
management team have a great
strategic plan in place. Who will
implement that plan? Even the best
plan is worthless unless it is
understood and embraced at all
levels. Your workforce is the engine
that powers your plan. You should
integrate your strategic workforce
planning with your business
planning.
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Approaching selection and
hiring in a haphazard manner.
Best case scenario — 14 percent of
the time you will get a good
employee. Worst case scenario —
most of the time you will get a
less-than-stellar worker and worse,
you might get sued. Good hiring
practices at all levels improve
overall performance and help deter
lawsuits. Rigorous interviews and
background checks can help employers
form an accurate picture of past
behavior, but pre-employment
screening for a potential employee’s
attitudes toward integrity,
substance abuse, reliability and
work ethic is a better predictor of
future behavior.
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Assuming your people
are trained.
Failing to develop your people’s
talents through appropriate training
is a massive waste of resources.
Many companies spend more time and
money negotiating and paying for
maintenance contracts on their
equipment than they do training
their staff. And yet, they claim
their employees are their number one
asset.
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Failing to evaluate
and measure.
It is easy to fall into the habit
of “business as usual;” performing
tasks by rote or doing things the
same way simply because that is the
way they have always been done. You
should continually assess your
business’ activities. Are they
necessary and relevant? If so, then
these activities should be tracked
to assess effectiveness as well as
efficiency. If you can’t measure it
— don’t do it.
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Failing to provide
appropriate feedback.
Fear of
conflict can cause leaders to avoid
mentioning unacceptable behavior or
requiring accountability. Whether
through performance reviews or
conversations during the course of
daily activities, meaningful,
constructive feedback is necessary
to produce good performance and to
help employees’
career development. In a
recent study conducted by
Salary.com, of
2,000 employees and 330 HR
professionals, two thirds of
companies believe their performance
reviews are effective, but only 39
percent of employees agree.
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Assuming you are doing a
good job and your customers are
happy Have you asked?
Assuming your customers are
satisfied simply because you have
not received complaints is not
necessarily an accurate barometer.
Your business should have mechanisms
in place to encourage customer
feedback. You should listen to, and
act on that feedback.
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Not marketing (failure
to understand the relationship
between marketing and sales).
Even businesses with an excellent
sales force should actively market
themselves. Marketing and its
disciplines of Public Relations,
Research and Advertising are
critical strategies to identify new
markets; communicate to prospects
and clients and to establish your
brand and message among all of your
constituents. Failure to actively
pursue these strategies handicaps
your business’ ability to compete.
As if seven deadly
leadership sins were not enough, we
will leave you with a bonus.
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Treating employees as a
commodity.
Any company who
has experienced the high cost of
employee turnover understands its
toll: replacement costs, loss of
productivity and decreased morale.
Treat employees like a commodity
and they will respond in kind — by
leaving you as soon as possible for
the next best offer.
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Developing
Leaders — Fast Track and Feedback
In a
typical Fortune 500 company, most
leaders spend an average of four years
in a given position. That means that
annually, at least one fourth of the
managers will change jobs. Successful
leaders in mid-level positions move even
more often — every two to three years.
Given these averages, companies must
continually develop new, effective
leaders to remain competitive.
Superior companies attract and inspire
talented people. To keep them, they must
engage them and hone their leadership
proficiency. Effective leaders strive to
continually improve themselves — not
just their skills. They use both formal
and informal support networks to get
honest feedback about their performance.
Listening is critical.
So how
important is feedback? It is critically
important at all levels.
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Leaders do not work in a vacuum. No
leader has all of the answers all
the time. Getting high-level input
and access to great minds is helpful
to any executive.
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Often, large organizations operate
as a silo community isolating
leaders in their roles. Helping
leaders learn from each other builds
needed peer support and
relationships.
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Equally important, establishing
two-way communication with staff is
essential to leadership performance.
Leaders must be able to express
their objectives and listen to their
staff’s feedback to build productive
teams and produce results.
In
addition to soliciting appropriate
feedback, up and coming leaders should
be encouraged to put their values into
action.
Values in Action
Good
leaders are as driven by their values
and principles as they are by
recognition and rewards. Know what
motivates your leaders. Give them
opportunities to make their mark on the
company. Often a leader’s corporate
vision is fed by his or her personal
values. A person who holds kindness and
respect as personal values is more
likely to create a corporate vision that
exemplifies respect for clients and
associates. Leadership integrity drives
long-term results. You may be able to
achieve short-term results by fear,
threats or coercion … but sustained
organizational results can only be
accomplished through integrity and
consistency.
Establishing leadership training and
mentoring programs, provides your new
leader with tools that will help them
grow professionally and personally. Not
only will your company benefit from
better management — they are more likely
to stay with you and make a difference
over time.
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Self-knowledge Provides the Opportunity
for Leadership Development
It is
estimated that in most organizations, 15
to 20 percent of employees are
considered top performers. At any given
time, 80 to 85 percent of an
organization’s employees are not fully
engaged and motivated. Many have the
skills, experience and education to
suggest they should be top performers,
but the engagement simply is not there.
Often, the disconnect is in management
and leadership ability.
When
you think about it, you need your
employees more than they need you. Your
success relies on your employees working
effectively under your management. The
more you are aware of their issues, the
better you can address them. Listening
and responding is a core leadership
skill. Sometimes leaders talk too much
and fail to listen. To get feedback, you
must ask for it, be open to it and
respond effectively.
Profiles CheckPoint 360° Feedback
System™ provides leaders with feedback
from those who observe their
performance: their direct supervisor,
employees and peers. A powerful
professional management development
tool, the CheckPoint 360°™ provides the
basis for planning and executing a
program for professional growth.
The
CheckPoint 360° Feedback System provides
different perspectives on leadership
characteristics. It gives leaders more
specific, job-related information about
their performance. With the
self-knowledge drawn from this
instrument comes the opportunity for:
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Performance improvement
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Identification of training needs
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Improved skills – leadership, goal
setting, interpersonal and
organizational
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Increased leadership accountability
Using
this type of feedback, you now have an
opportunity to clarify issues and
misunderstandings and make positive
changes. It gives you the feedback you
need to manage effectively. The
Checkpoint 360° positively impacts your
individual growth and the organization’s
success.
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Book
Review
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Book: “Workforce
Crisis;” Dychtwald, Erickson, Morrison;
Harvard Business School Press
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Within
the decade, the Baby Boomer generation
will begin retiring. At the same time
declining birth rates will mean a
deficit of younger workers. With these
demographic changes, companies in
developed economies will face an
unprecedented brain drain.
To
survive, companies must rethink their
workforce strategies and transform their
management and human resource practices
to attract, engage and retain workers of
all ages. Based on decades of research,
the authors of “Workforce Crisis”
present innovative strategies for
rewriting the “employment deal” and
leveraging the talent of the people your
enterprise needs to succeed.
Read a
full review of “Workforce Crisis” at
www.amazon.com
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