As we slowly make our way through the remaining weeks of the year, many organizations are now shifting their focus to an exercise that is often met with disdain and apprehension – the annual performance review. Regardless of whether you’re on the receiving or giving end, most of us tend to view these feedback exercises as unconstructive or a waste of time, in large part because we approach the conversation from the wrong vantage point. Participating at a recent awards gala for one of the regional high schools helped to not only shed some light on this issue, but also on how leaders can make the act of giving feedback to others more instructive and beneficial.

I was invited by the school principal to give a speech and help present awards as part of a ceremony to recognize students who had maintained a high academic standing throughout the previous school year. Although I was honoured and delighted to take part, I have to admit that I did feel some hesitation because I wasn’t an active member of this community when these students achieved these accomplishments. As such, I felt that any recognition on my part of their efforts wouldn’t exactly carry much weight because of that lack of connection.

So I decided to take another approach to my involvement where I used my role in this ceremony to serve as a source of encouragement and support for how these students could build on and attain a similar achievement over the course of the current academic year.

Following the ceremony, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from both the parents and the students of how much they appreciated my participation, and in particular the ideas I had shared in my speech and in the brief comments made to every student as they came up on stage to accept their award.

What I began to realize is that Click here to continue reading »”Are You Following These 3 Rules For Giving Effective Feedback?”

When it comes to the portrayal of leadership in films and other fictional outlets, there’s a common tendency to present the leader as someone who is unmistakably confident and self-assured; who gives off an air of authority and a willingness to direct others towards the best path to take to get them out their current predicament. In many ways, this makes sense as when we think of a good leader, the traits that often come to mind are confidence, authority and dominance.

Of course, outside of the leadership role, the expression of such traits are not as well regarded considering that they are also the signs of a narcissistic personality – that such traits refer to an individual whose only concerned about their own self-interests, with little thought or regard for the needs or concerns of those around them.

So if we are to believe that leadership is about putting others before yourself, of encouraging those around you to succeed instead of simply directing them to help you personally attain some level of success, why is it that we continue to promote the narcissistic approach to leadership as the best one?  More importantly, does the narcissistic style of leadership help to foster the necessary conditions organizations require to succeed in today’s inter-connected and increasingly competitive market? Three recent studies help to shed some light on this and provide empirical proof that allows us to come to a definitive answer to this question. Click here to continue reading »”It’s Not You, It’s Me – Is Narcissism Good for Leadership?”

Imagine working for an organization where one of the senior managers insists on yelling at his employees because he believes it’s the surest way to garner the respect of those he leads and now, the front-line managers are beginning to follow his example by yelling at their team members.

Or what about working for a company president whose driven to attract the best talent under the guise of needing their help to make his organization more innovative, only to turn around and demand that they simply do what he tells them to do.

Better still, imagine what it would be like to work for an organization where year-end bonuses are tied to the amount of vacation time you give up, and not on your performance and contributions made to the organization’s collective efforts.

Although these might sound like fictional plot lines for a movie or TV show that satirizes the dysfunctional nature of today’s workplaces, they are in fact the real-life examples shared by one of my readers about the toxic work environment they face every day. And unfortunately, these kinds of scenarios are becoming more and more the norm of what employees face in the workplace.

Naturally, there is a tendency to assume this rise in toxic work environments is yet another consequence of the persisting economic uncertainties many industries and countries are currently grappling with. However, the reality is that such assumptions only serve Click here to continue reading »”Are You Creating A Toxic Workplace? Ask Yourself These 4 Questions To Find Out”

For the second episode of my podcast series, “Leadership Biz Cafe”, I’m pleased to welcome Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. Teresa is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and a Director of Research at Harvard Business School. Steven is a developmental psychologist whose writings have appeared in such illustrious publications as the Harvard Business Review and The New York Times.

In this episode, we discuss their research findings which serve as the basis for their new book “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work”.

Over the course of the discussion, Teresa and Steven describe:

• What is inner work life and why leaders need to pay more attention to it.
• What is the progress principle and why does it matter in today’s work environment.
• Why leaders need to provide employees with responsibilities that create a sense of purpose or meaning.
• How experiencing setbacks can be more damaging to employee morale than leaders realize.
• What actions leaders should avoid to prevent a loss of productivity from their employees.
• What leaders should be managing, as opposed to what they think they should be managing, to encourage productivity in their organization.
• What two other factors leaders can employ to improve employee performance over the long-term.
• How leaders and employees can help facilitate a shift toward the creation of meaningful work.

As I told Teresa and Steven during our conversation, “The Progress Principle” is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year on leadership and improving an organization’s productivity. I invite you both to listen to this podcast and to check out their book to find out why I so thoroughly enjoyed reading “The Progress Principle”, as well as talking with them about the discoveries they made through their research on the challenges employees face in today’s workplace.

Click on the player below to listen to the podcast:

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Buy Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer’s book “The Progress Principle” on Amazon.com (or Amazon.ca for Canadian readers)