leadership

Leadership Stamina: The Priority of Self-Management

October 4, 2017

Leadership Stamina: The Priority of Self-Management

How often do you find yourself working long hours on a major organizational project, leading your team, managing diverse stakeholder opinions, or facing a looming deadline with nowhere near enough resources (time, people, money, technology) to meet your goals. Then somehow, it all comes together, and you’re a hero! A superhero! Or so you think. In reality, you realize that you’ve thrown all your energy into this one facet of your life and work, and other facets (family, relationships, other projects, personal finances, exercise, life goals, etc.) are now suffering from lack of attention. (more…)

When Leading Your, Is All About Me

July 11, 2017

Priscilla Archangel

Behavior, Character, Leadership

When Leading You, Is All About Me

True leadership is about influencing others to achieve common goals. But when leaders place too great a focus on their own self-concept, their status and their personal goals, this self-absorption is generally driven by feelings of insecurity or superiority. These feelings drive behaviors at two opposite ends of the spectrum, and stifle the growth and development of the team and organization. Let’s look at examples of each.

Insecure Leadership

Chris is the CEO of a multinational company. As he banged his fist on the conference room table, his frustration was palpable to those in the room. Joe, the VP of Product Development had worked for Chris for a year now. He joined the firm enticed by the scope of responsibility in this VP position, and by Chris’s excitement and commitment to developing a new product line. But now, he was wondering how much longer he could endure working there. Having moved his family half-way across the country, he wanted to give it his best effort, but his natural optimism had waned sharply. (more…)

Developing Leadership Perspective: Fact vs. Reality

June 7, 2017

Priscilla Archangel

Decision Making, Leadership, Process, values

Developing Leadership Perspective: Fact vs. Reality

There’s an old fable about three blind men who touched an elephant to find out what it was like. One man touched the leg and declared that the elephant was like a tree trunk. Another touched the elephant’s tail and declared that it was like a snake. The third man touched its side and declared that it was like a wall. A disagreement ensued as they each defended their perspective on the animal. After all, they knew what they felt.

Were each of them right? Yes, and no. They each experienced a part of the elephant, but none experienced the whole. They each described the elephant from their perspective, but due to limitations in their vision and space, none of them could see it in its entirety. Only when they began to compare notes, and to walk around the elephant feeling different parts of it, could they begin to piece together a view of the entire animal. They had to experience it from different angles. Later, a sighted man came along and immediately saw the entire elephant. He quickly walked around the animal, sized it up and fully described it to the men. Their facts were not the same as reality.

(more…)

The 3 C’s to Establishing Tone at the Top

May 4, 2017

Priscilla Archangel

Behavior, Character, Commitment, Leadership, values

The 3 C’s to Establishing Tone at the Top

Michael left the office early for once. He was on his way home to celebrate the position he had just accepted at a new company. After 25 years of hard work and great personal sacrifice, he finally got the VP position he felt he deserved. He had more than enough experience to step into the role and produce solid wins for his new employer. Everything was moving along smoothly until that night when he got the call from the executive recruiter. There was a problem with background check they just completed. They couldn’t find record of him having completed his MBA. He recognized that when he presented his credentials, he neglected to mention that he was two classes short of graduation, but he felt that his vast experience more than made up for that. Unfortunately for him, his new employer disagreed. The offer was withdrawn, not because he lacked the degree, but because he hadn’t come clean about it.

Joan was celebrating for a different reason. Her team exceeded their stretch sales target for the fiscal year, a herculean effort on the part of everyone. Her leadership, strategic planning, and ability to pull the group together to find innovative approaches to problems had paid off. This news would be well received by investors and provide her and the team with a significant bonus opportunity. The president called and asked her to stop by his office. As she walked down the hall to see him, she imagined his congratulatory words. She might even get a promotion! But when she opened the door and saw a somber look on his face, and the HR VP already present, she knew the message was going to be very different. Someone had reported a few irregularities in Joan’s sales tactics. She had simply taken a bit of interpretive license in several guidelines, just a gray area that didn’t hurt anyone. But the president didn’t see it as a minor issue. And he dismissed her on the spot for her lack of integrity. (more…)

5 Keys to Maximizing Your Personal Brand

April 5, 2017

Priscilla Archangel

Brand, Leadership, Peronal Brand, Presence, Purpose, Strengths

5 Keys to Maximizing Your Personal Brand

Do you know what people are saying about you when you’re not in the room? Do you know what they think of your performance, your presence, your purpose and your personality? Rather than being unconcerned about what others think, it’s important to ensure that their perception of you aligns with how you want to be perceived. Because the answers to these questions are part of your personal brand.

Glenn Llopis describes personal brand as “the total experience of someone having a relationship with who you are and what you represent as an individual; as a leader.”¹ It’s your promise that you will do what you said you will do. It’s your reputation that attracts others to you, or pushes them away. Establishing and managing your brand is an ongoing process fueled by continual behavioral inputs that remind others of who you are, what you do, and how you can support them. Leaders must develop their brand so that it validates their work and provides a platform to connect with others and accomplish their goals.

(more…)

Should Leaders Really Be Patient

February 1, 2017

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership, Patience, Process, Results

Should Leaders Really Be Patient?

Leaders are rewarded for action. They’re used to being in control and working to influence the environment around them. They have a vision, mission, and objectives to accomplish. Other stakeholders hold them accountable for developing and executing plans to drive results. Providing excuses isn’t part of their vocabulary. So what place does the word “patience” have in the context of leadership?

To understand, let’s look at patience as a leadership competency. According to Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger’s model of leadership, patient leaders are tolerant with people and processes; they wait for others to catch up before acting; they try to understand people and data before making decisions and proceeding; and they follow established processes. Meanwhile, leaders who are unskilled in this area act before it’s time to act; they don’t take the time to listen or understand, they think almost everything needs to be done quicker and shorter; they often interrupt others and finish their sentences; they’re action oriented and avoid process and problem complexity; and they sometimes jump to conclusions instead of thinking things through.¹

(more…)

Illusion or Reality: 7 Fundamentals of Realistic Leadership

November 2, 2016

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership

Illusion or Reality: 7 Fundamentals of Realistic Leadership

I recently watched a video of David Copperfield, the famous illusionist, making the Statue of Liberty vanish in front of a group of spectators. It weighs 450,000 pounds and stands 305 feet tall, so moving it is not an easy task. To accomplish this trick, Copperfield set up a stage at night for the viewing audience to sit on. The stage was framed in front by pillars which held a curtain secured at ground level and lifted up to block their view of the statue. A circle of lights at ground level illuminated it, and its presence was tracked on a radar screen visible to all. He presented the statue to the audience, then raised the curtain for a few moments. When the curtain dropped again, search lights beamed through where the statue should have stood, showing that nothing was there. It had vanished, only leaving the ground level lights to show its footprint. After raising the curtain again for a few moments, Copperfield then dropped it to reveal the statue, back in place.

How did he do it? During the period of time that the curtain was raised, the audience viewing platform and pillars rotated slowly to the right, so that when the curtain dropped, the statue was behind a pillar. Blaring music throughout the entire show distracted the spectators, and the radar display was fake.

Copperfield’s spectacular show, performed in 1983, was full of entertainment and flair. The audience was amazed, even in the midst of the fact the sculpture couldn’t simply disappear. They couldn’t figure out how it was done, thus they bought into the reality of the illusion, that was listed by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2014 as the largest disappearance ever performed by a magician.

Illusions

We’re often spectators to other illusions in our world, not necessarily executed by traditional magicians. Such illusions may be manifested in the form of major initiatives taken on by leaders and their teams to accomplish admirable goals. But they lose sight of the organizational realities. (more…)

Who Owns You?

July 5, 2016

Priscilla Archangel

Character, Leadership, Priorities

Who Owns You?

CEOs and individuals in business leadership roles are frequently confronted with the dichotomy of making decisions to ensure the long term health of their companies, while maximizing short term profits. Their management roles compel them to lead the organization as if they are owners, but in reality, these organizations are owned by and at the mercy of investors and customers who determine the value of their products and services.

In a recent survey conducted by Fortune Magazine, 77% of CEOs said it would be easier to manage their companies if they were private¹. This feedback comes in a climate of increasing numbers of activist investors who purchase a significant amount of company stock, then proceed to make recommendations to the board and company leadership on how they should run it to increase value. To be fair, all such suggestions are not bad, and some have led to considerably positive results in the bottom line of these companies. But these CEO owners may find that their company’s mission and purpose are no longer aligned with where others want them to go.

Customers also have a powerful voice in shaping corporate strategies and decisions. Pepsi worked hard over several years to reformulate its diet cola to remove aspartame, thereby meeting the needs of people who wanted to move away from artificial sweeteners. However, many other diehard Diet Pepsi drinkers didn’t like the taste with the sucralose replacement, and complained loudly. So Pepsi recently announced that the old aspartame formula would return to the market, and they will sell both versions to meet the needs of all those customers. Oh, and did I mention that their sales volume slumped more than 10% during one of the quarters that the aspartame formula was off the market?
(more…)

Leadership Disciplines for Success

June 1, 2016

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership

Leadership Disciplines for Success

What disciplines do you practice to make your leadership successful?

Leadership can be learned, but it requires discipline to be effective. It requires identifying and establishing a pattern or system of constructive behaviors, then repeating them, until they become habits that are ingrained into your routine.

Leadership disciplines are controlled behaviors designed to accomplish specific objectives. They are determined based on the individual leader’s personal style and skillsets, their roles and responsibilities, and the culture and needs of the organization where they function in a leadership capacity.

Leadership roles and responsibilities are all relative. The ability to effectively hold a leadership role in a Fortune 100 company, a family owned business, a mid-sized non-profit, city government or as an entrepreneur is different for each person. But the need for discipline is consistent across every setting.

Leadership is establishing a relationship with others, to influence behaviors, to accomplish a goal. Thus leadership discipline is important because no matter the size of the team, everyone is watching and to some degree imitating the leader. And because everyone is watching the leader, it’s important to model the right behaviors. These behaviors are determined by the results the leader wants to accomplish.

Building Discipline

Athletes provide a great example of the need for discipline. They come in all shapes and sizes, from little league superstars to multimillion dollar professionals. But each have to learn the disciplines of their respective sport in order to improve their skill level, and to be competitive. There are four key steps to this discipline. (more…)

Discovering You Leadership Purpose

May 6, 2016

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership, Priorities, Purpose, Results

Discovering Your Leadership Purpose

We frequently talk about purpose in the context of individuals or organizations, but there are other areas where identification and understanding of purpose is critical. One such instance is in the context of leadership, and Isadore Sharp, founder and Chairman of the iconic Four Seasons Hotel brand provides a great example.

Sharp finished college with an architecture degree and joined his father’s construction business in the Toronto area. After building several motor hotels, he recognized that his passion lay not in constructing and owning hotel buildings, but in providing a premier guest experience and level of customer service. He wanted to “welcome customers and treat them like guests coming into our home.” ¹ So Sharp shifted from being a hotel owner-operator into managing hotel properties. His priority is a commitment to the Golden Rule, where employees and guests alike are treated with respect. Along the way he had to examine the behavior of his senior leadership team and part company with those who couldn’t lead by example. As a result, with 96 properties in 41 countries and annual revenues in excess of $4B, both customer and employee retention is high, and they’ve been on the list of 100 Best Places to Work for 18 consecutive years.

Sharp understands that his leadership purpose was to provide a premier level of hospitality and service. And over time, he recognized the importance of building the right team around him, whose perfomance aligned with that purpose. He fulfills his purpose based on leadership strengths of treating guests with respect and sincerity, and providing the right location and environment for a first class stay. He consistently embeds it into every aspect of his organization’s processes, rewards and behaviors; and believes that a true leader influences not from a position of power, but from a position of respect.² His leadership purpose and strengths, then work together to accomplish his leadership goal of generating a reasonable profit that benefits the company, hotel owners, customers and employees.

Leadership purpose forms the “why” of your leadership. Are you seeking a leadership role simply because of the power, position, people or profits? Or are you leading because of the purpose, mission and vision that you are pursuing, no matter the size of the role? Leadership strengths are the capabilities and critical success factors necessary to operate in your purpose. And leadership goals are the results you accomplish in your work. (more…)

Leadership Stamina: The Priority of Self-Management

When Leading You, Is All About Me

Developing Leadership Perspective: Fact vs. Reality

The 3 C’s to Establishing Tone at the Top

5 Keys to Maximizing Your Personal Brand

Should Leaders Really Be Patient?

Illusion or Reality: 7 Fundamentals of Realistic Leadership

Illusions

Who Owns You?

Leadership Disciplines for Success

Discovering Your Leadership Purpose

Leadership Tips