Our topic for January is Leading from within, so it seems like a fitting way to start out 2012. To be able to lead others, we need to be true to ourselves and lead with our heart as well as our heads.

Blessings, Jonena

Leading from Within

If you’ve been around me for any length of time, you know the TBD mantra: Be Loving and Kind. We don’t mean this to be gushy; we just want everyone to treat EVERYONE ELSE like they would like to be treated: With COURTESY and RESPECT.

No one person or group is any better than another. It takes everyone working together to form a cohesive team – - each fulfilling his/her specific role to provide the best service possible to our internal and external customers.

To make this work in your company, it needs to start with the leaders understanding and behaving in a way that their direct and indirect reports feel safe and know that their efforts are valued.

• No one-upmanship is allowed.
• No one is allowed to get away with taking credit where credit is not due.
• No one needs to afraid that their ideas will be “stolen” from them.

Everyone should be encouraged to be proud, yet humble about their accomplishments – - this includes leaders who should be modeling the behavior with everything they do.

Your “Stop Doing” List

Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow.com

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When You Are in Power, Are Those Around You Threatened?

Dana Theus, Magus Consulting

Sometimes when we begin to refine our understanding of power and consciously work to bring more of our own power to the fore in our lives, it creates discomfort with – or for – those close to us, including colleagues, employees, friends and even spouses and children. If others have become used to you giving your power away, when you take it back this can surprise them, and sometimes even threaten them. This can be true when you are granted external power as well, and those around you are not used to the new level of responsibility you now shoulder. As I launch into the Take Back Your Power series of blog posts, I think it’s important to acknowledge this dynamic and prepare for how to handle these situations.

First, it’s important to get comfortable with the idea that you deserve to be powerful, and you especially deserve to own your own personal power. A key characteristic of internal power is that it is an unlimited supply. When you take your own power back, you are not taking it away from others; however, you may be demanding that others rely more on their own internal power than they did before.

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Thanksgiving Greetings!

We hope that the leadership tips and techniques we’ve shared over this past year have enriched your personal and business lives. Additionally we want to say how grateful we are for your expertise that you have so freely shared with us! May you enjoy the holiday with family and friends surrounding you – - and great food too!

Blessings, Jonena

Thanksgiving Blessings and Gratitude

Thanksgiving reminds me of so many blessings to count and so many memories to cherish.

I found this quote by Henri J. M Nouwen that I hope will resonate with you as it did me:

“Gratitude … goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

Gratitude has been a very big theme in my life these past months of moving, life transitions, making new friends and looking at what the future will bring. I’ve found that going without things (still in boxes after 3 months) is ok. I have way too much stuff anyhow and need to reduce my “household footprint” by another 40% !

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5 Ways to Advance Amid Dysfunction

Dana Theus, Magus Consulting

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Your Meeting – Don’t Let it be an Albatross – Part 1

Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow.com

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I hope you enjoy this issue on Transparent Leadership. Where on a scale from Clear to Opaque do you think your employees would say your leadership style normally lands?

Transparent Leadership is a Way Life – Not a Temporary Fix

Wow, here’s what I’ve been telling my employees for 20 years:

“I’m not that deep.” - Translated: Please STOP reading more into what I say than the actual words you hear.

“What you see is what you get!” - Translated: I’m happy with the woman you see before you. If I wanted to be someone different, I’d behave differently!

And how do you match up with Ms Merriam-Webster’s definitions?

Transparent:

1: able to be seen through ▪ transparent plastic bags▪ transparent [=clear] glass

2 a: easy to notice or understand : obvious ▪ a transparent lie/falsehood▪ Their motives were transparent. b: honest and open : not secretive

Transparency: 1: the quality of being transparent: such as a: the quality that makes it possible to see through something ▪ the transparency of a piece of glass b: the quality that makes something obvious or easy to understand ▪ the transparency of their motives ▪ He says that there needs to be more transparency in the way the government operates.

Question 1: Do your employees know the direction you’re heading? (Aka: trail your “leading” them down?)

Question 2: On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your personal transparent leadership or that of your company?

That’s a tough question, but hopefully one that we don’t answer with, “It depends…” Transparent leadership doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s a way of thinking and behaving every day with every transaction.

Being a transparent leader means allowing your employees and customers to know where you stand and where your company stands.

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What Does it Take to be Opaque? Part 1

Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow.com

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Want to read more about Transparent Leadership? Check out our blog: Leadership Trends and Today’s Realities.

View other recommended books in TBD Consulting’s Bookstore!

Gone are the days that we gather around the water cooler and get the latest information – THANK HEAVEN!  Not only did we all NOT get accurate info, some of us introverts missed out entirely!  Today’s world requires virtual communication in addition to face-to-face meetings.  Whether it be verbal or written, all communication requires thoughtful consideration of who/what/where/when and how.  Hopefully this month’s issue of Leadership Trends will provide some pointers to help you accurately communicate exactly what you want to and in the tone intended.

How long’s it been? Yikes, I can hardly remember when our company didn’t communicate virtually! We sold our corporate building and ventured into being a Virtual Company YEARS before it was popular with much of corporate America.  It was scary at first.

1. Would our customers still take us seriously?
2. Would our employees and contractors work effectively without their supervisor handy?
3. Would our leaders be able to coach and guide without being face to face with their employees?

I can honestly say that the answer to all those questions is a resounding, YES.  The big ah-ha came to me when I started noticing calls changing with our Fortune 100 companies’ employees.  No longer was everyone on the call sitting around a single speaker phone in a conference room on the 20th floor.  What I began hearing were the quieted sounds of pets in the background and other non-office sounds like lawn mowers and doorbells ringing.  I’d be on a call with five people, three of which were calling in from their virtual, home offices located in different cities.  What was modeled by the call’s facilitator was that each person on the call was equally important to the success of the meeting.

Well, that certainly cleared up some insecurity for working virtually.  As our clients started taking working virtually seriously, we set out to make sure that our leaders and employees were trained to use deliberate, scheduled and organized virtual meeting skills.  Our HR Director created a Communications Plan for us to follow so that everyone had the who/what/when/how.  We also determined to use pre-published Agendas so everyone would be prepared before each meeting.  Along with these forms, we also created 1-on-1 Communication Forms for coaching and follow-up as well as a Meeting Minutes form so everyone was held accountable for take-aways from each call.

Internet Messaging is vital to our knowing who is available and when.  We use a simple formula that everyone is to follow so we don’t call or send emails to “non-working” associates.

• Available: I’m here at my computer available for all communication.
• Busy: I’m here, but working on a deliverable deadline.  Please wait to contact me unless it’s urgent.
• Away: I’m here in the building, but not at my PC.  Call me, don’t email or IM right now.
• Appear Offline: I’m not in the building.  Please call me if you need me.

Communicating virtually can be challenging, but it is also very rewarding when done correctly.  Here are some absolutes: Call each of your direct reports regularly. Set 1-on-1 calls regularly and follow-up regularly. It’s very easy for leaders to concentrate on putting out fires and unintentionally “ignore” the virtual workers who are clicking along and not making waves.

Just remember, people stay at their jobs because of good bosses.  Good bosses are effective because they care about their employees and make communicating with them a priority!

This article can also be found on our blog where you are encouraged to login and comment.

12 – DOs and DONTs for Effective E-mail Communication

Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow.com

Overarching consideration – - Use the right mode of communication – often e-mail is not the right way to communicate a particular message.

1. Do not treat an e-mail like a conversation – In normal conversation we use the feedback of body language to modify our message, pace, tone, and emphasis in order to stay out of trouble.  In e-mail we do not have this real-time feedback
2. Keep messages short – a good e-mail should take only 15-30 seconds to read and absorb. Less is more in online communication.  Try to have the majority of messages fit into the “preview” pane. When messages go “over the horizon,” the reader does not know how long they are which creates a psychological block.
3. Establish the right tone upfront – e-mail messages have a momentum. If you start on the wrong foot, you will have a difficult time connecting.  The “Subject” line and the first three words of a note establish the tone.
4. Remember the permanent nature of e-mails – using e-mail to praise helps people remember the kind words. Using e-mail to be critical is usually a bad idea because people will re-read the note many times.
5. Keep your objective in mind – establish a clear objective of how you want the reader to react to your note.  For sensitive notes, write the objective down.  When proofreading your note, check to see if your objective reaction is likely to happen. If not, reword the note.
6. Do not write notes when you are not yourself. This sounds simple, but is really much more difficult than meets the eye. Learn the techniques to avoid this problem.
7. To avoid “e-mail grenade” battles, simply do not take the bait. Do not respond to edgy e-mails in kind. Change the venue to be more effective.
8. Be careful with use of pronouns in e-mail. Pronouns establish the tone. The most dangerous pronoun in an e-mail is “you.”
9. Avoid using “absolutes” such as: never, always, impossible, or cannot. Soften the absolutes if you want to be more credible in e-mails.
10. Avoid sarcasm or any kind of humor at the expense of another person in an e-mail. It will come back to haunt you.
11. Learn the techniques to keep your inbox clean (down to zero notes each day) so you are highly responsive when needed. Adopting proper distribution rules in your organization will cut e-mail traffic by more than 30% instantly.
12. Understand the rules for writing those challenging notes so you always get the result you want rather than create a need for damage control.

Related Articles:

Part 1: Understanding E-Body Language

Part 2: Understanding E-Body Language

What Is Personal Power?

Dana Theus, Principal, Magus Consulting

There are many kinds of leadership and power and I choose to focus on personal power for myself and with my clients – I call it InPower. InPower is that special ability leaders can develop to free themselves from the culture around them so they can choose where and how they place their energy in service to the world and themselves including, and especially, intentionally shaping the very culture they have freed themselves from. I choose to focus on InPower because:

• it is useful in all aspects of life, not just business;
• it tends to be infectious and helps bring the best out of everyone around you; and
• no one can take it away from you.

Personal power is hard to see

It’s easy to comprehend external power. External power builds buildings and fights wars. Many of those wielding external power do have InPower, but not all, and it’s certainly not a prerequisite.

InPower is a life-long journey requiring wisdom and the courage to explore dimensions of power that many around you don’t see and don’t know how to appreciate until you do. This is the call of leaders, to push out ahead of others, find the treasure and bring its gifts back to the tribe.

Our dominant culture doesn’t train us to see InPower. For every Obi-Wan Jedi Knight, there are a thousand Luke Skywalkers in our media (and even Luke’s media story ended when he attained InPower and became a Jedi.) But Obi-Wan was right to cover Luke’s eyes to help him tap into the InPower within him. Because as hard as InPower is to see…

InPower is easy to feel.

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