For those who live in one of the northern climates like I do, the arrival of Spring is unquestionably a welcome event on the seasonal calendar. With the anticipated return of flowering gardens and bright shiny leaves on the neighbourhood trees, I couldn’t wait to get to work on the garden, clearing away the debris left behind by the retreating snow.

While hanging outside in my garden, I heard the unmistakeable calls of a flock of Canada geese migrating back home from their winter sojourn. As I watched the flock pass over in their distinctive V-shaped formation, I was reminded of lessons on leadership, communication, and collaboration which these birds so effectively illustrate.

1. Leadership is about putting the needs of others ahead of yourself
When the Canada geese travel in V-formation, the lead bird’s job is not simply to guide the other birds as to which direction to fly. Indeed, the lead bird’s primary role is to help reduce air drag so that the flock can fly for greater distances without expending most of their energy.

The same approach applies to the role of leadership, where the function is not to get others to simply do your bidding, but empowering those around you to succeed in reaching your organization’s shared goal.

2. Your employees should have a clear idea of your organization’s direction
One of the reasons why the geese can so easily interchange which bird flies in the lead position is because they all have a clear understanding of their flight path. They not only know which direction their flock needs to head toward, but they also know how long they need to fly before they reach their next rest stop.

When we talk about leadership, one topic that typically arises is the importance of open and clear communication between an organization’s leadership and its employees. And yet, how often does that communication involve Click here to continue reading »”A Springtime Reminder on Leadership, Communication, and Collaboration”

One of the approaches I regularly use on my blog is taking seemingly unrelated topics to the field of leadership to help illustrate some ideas that would help leaders become better enablers for those under their stewardship. In this piece, I’d like to share a new discovery regarding how bats communicate and its connection to how leaders should develop their employees’ skills.

A recent study by scientists in Australia has revealed that bats living in different regions of that country have distinctive regional calls or dialects. These calls are used by bats to help them navigate and hunt through a process called echolocation – where high frequency sounds are sent out and bounce back to the bat providing them with information on what lies ahead.

The idea that bats communicate in regional dialects – a trait found also in human communication – spurred on a number of tangents in my mind about how leaders communicate with the various members of their team. To help bring one of these ideas into sharper focus, I’d like to briefly discuss the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition.

Basically, the Dreyfus model breaks down the process of how we develop new skills through instruction and practice into five stages: Click here to continue reading »”Are You Using Dialects To Develop Your Employees’ Skills?”

For the last few weeks I’ve been working with a client who has provided an interesting opportunity to examine one of the challenges leaders find themselves struggling with in today’s fast-paced business world. Tom* serves as one of the senior department heads at a mid-size technology firm, overseeing the development and marketing of some of his company’s key product lines.

On all accounts, Tom has consistently demonstrated the key traits of being an effective leader, as evidenced both in his performance reviews as well as in his team’s track record of successful product releases. However, on the heels of some rather lukewarm responses from both the market and industry critics to their latest efforts, Tom has been grappling with uncertainties over his ability to continue leading his team in the months ahead.

Although these recent developments haven’t lead to any negative reactions from senior management, Tom has nonetheless been feeling like he was thrown off the proverbial horse, despite the fact that his team remains determined to keep building on their past successes. The current situation has stirred up feelings of self-doubt in Tom; about whether he would be able to continue to successfully lead his team or even if he was still the right person for the job.

Through the course of our coaching sessions, we came up with a number of strategies Tom could use to help him overcome these feelings of self-doubt so he can continue to support his team as they push ahead.

Of course, Tom is not alone in feeling at times this sense of uncertainty over one’s ability to successfully lead those under their care.  With this in mind, here are some measures that can help others in leadership positions regain their footing onto more certain ground as they navigate their organization through this constantly-changing business environment. Click here to continue reading »”The One Challenge All Leaders Secretly Face”

Over the last few weeks, I read with much interest a discussion among members of a particular LinkedIn group where they attempted to define the single most important attribute to leadership. For some participants, the most important trait was integrity; others felt that awareness was the key to effective leadership. As I perused through the various answers – and there were many good ones – it was clear that a consensus was unlikely to be reached over what characteristic is the most critical to the role of leading others.

Naturally, this wasn’t the only time where there’s been some challenge and debate surrounding the quantification of leadership. One only needs to look at when discussions are started over how to define leadership to notice how blurry the boundaries are in delineating this particular role. It doesn’t take long for such exercises to cause more confusion and debate over how we should view leadership than they do to help clarify the concept of being a leader.

The difficulty that seems to persist in defining or quantifying this particular function got me thinking about whether we should be looking at leadership as more of an art than a science. In other words, that we should view leadership as something that is understood more through the eye of the beholder, and how it’s perceived being very much dependent on the environment in which it’s presented. Click here to continue reading »”Is Leadership an Art or a Science?”