The following is a guest post by Kevin Eikenberry. Kevin is an author, speaker, trainer, consultant, and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group.  His latest book, ” From Bud to Boss – Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership“, was co-authored with Guy Harris and will be available online and in bookstores starting tomorrow.  Recently, his team created the Bud to Boss Community, a free online resource to help people who are new to the role of leadership.

President Mubarak has been the President of Egypt for 30 years. He’s an experienced leader, so you would think he would have known better. It seems he wasn’t listening to what was really happening in his country. He should have known about the issues. By all reports the concerns of the people aren’t new. The experiences of his neighbors in Tunisia should have been a sign. But, apparently not.

Because his inactivity, his lack of awareness and perhaps hubris, he was driven out last Friday from his role as the leader of his country.

You don’t lead a country and the consequences of your actions (or inactions) as a leader likely won’t be as dire or as widespread. But the lesson is right there in front of you. Are you paying attention?

In part, President Mubarak wasn’t paying attention. It is easy to do. It is easy to sit in our offices, thinking about the seemingly urgent matters, pondering our next big project, and thinking big things. When we do these things we may not be focusing on what is happening with our team, department, or organization.

Or maybe we focus on our organization too much – and we don’t see the trends, shifts, new technologies or other outside factors that will be impacting our businesses. What is your Tunisia?

The solution is simple. Click here to continue reading »”Are You Paying Attention?”

The start of a new year often fosters discussions over what will be the key events to occur over the next 12 months. So far, many pundits are pointing out how 2011 will be the year of mass adoption by businesses of social media platforms as part of their marketing, management, and employee retention efforts. Given the fact that Facebook has surpassed Google as the most visited site on the internet in 2010, as well as the deepening integration of social media platforms into people’s everyday lives, there’s no question that businesses will have to adapt and incorporate social media into their various processes.

Granted, there are many businesses which are already fairly active on the various social media sites. Of course, while some of them have been shining examples of how businesses should use social media, most are still struggling in large part because they haven’t quite understood how they should be using social media to benefit their organization.

So why are some companies able to join in the social media scene and within a short period, reap the benefits while others were better off before they made the jump into these online social spheres? To help answer this question, I’d like to first start off by sharing this example of an interaction between a small business owner and a customer from the ‘real world’.

A friend of mine recently had some problems with his car and so he took it to his local garage to have it checked out. After running a series of tests on his car, the mechanic told my friend what was behind the problem his car was having and what the he could do to fix it. But then this mechanic did something completely unexpected – after explaining how he could fix the problem, he then advised my friend that his solution would only be a temporary fix and that he would be better off going to another garage that specializes in this kind of repair work.

Yes, you heard right – here was a small business owner who was basically telling a paying customer that while his service would fix his problem, he would be better off going to his competition to get his car repaired.

So, in addition to being a great example of true customer service, what can this story teach other business owners/leaders about how to approach using social media for their business?

To find out the three key takeaways from this story, click here to read this guest post on the thoughtLEADERS blog.

Image courtesy of sicoactiva

Have you ever noticed how discussions on improving business operations or possible solutions to today’s economic challenges rarely consider what the emotional impact will be on employees? In some ways, it’s not too surprising given how many of us have had leaders who taught us to not take things personally at work given that “it’s just business”. However, the findings from a recent report should get many of these leaders to reconsider the role human emotions play in how they lead their teams.

The UK business magazine “Management Today”, along with the Institute of Leadership and Management, carried out a survey of 2,405 managers and 2,595 non-managers to determine how much trust employees have in the CEOs who run their organizations. In what should certainly be an encouraging sign for both leaders and their organizations, 47% of those surveyed felt that leaders had done a good to very good job managing their companies through the current global recession. Where things get interesting, though, is when they compared the trust levels attained by male and female CEOs.

For the second year in a row, female CEOs rated higher trust levels than male CEOs. What’s more, in this year’s survey, they also found that male employees have a greater level of trust in female CEOs than those who work for male CEOs. In fact, the level of trust for female CEOs was especially high among men who work in non-managerial roles within their organization.

So what’s behind this growing divergence in trust levels employees have for female CEOs over male CEOs? After reviewing their data, the report’s authors found it comes down to one word. Click here to continue reading »”A Revealing Look at One of The Dirty Words in Business”

Today’s piece is a guest post by S Max Brown.  Max is the VP of Organizational Learning at the Recognition Management Institute and in the last ten years, he has made nearly one thousand presentations in locations all around the world. He’s taken clients rappelling on the Great Wall of China, facilitated at the Parliament of World Religions Conference in Spain, spoken to a cheering crowd in the Netherlands, and even survived a severe winter presentation in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Recently, Max and I co-wrote the guest piece, “Is Your Leadership Serving Others… or Just Yourself?” for the “Wake Up and Shake it Up” leadership series organized by Shawn Murphy at Achieved Strategies.

Executives that secure big pay packages for themselves and then lay off thousands of employees don’t inspire much loyalty or confidence. Yet examples of such corporate excess and greed are plentiful. Why are we surprised when employees don’t feel like doing their best for the organization? Why are we surprised when our organizations suffer accordingly?

Recent research finds that we become more egocentric and self-centered as we gain more power. Sometimes, we believe that we can hide our insecurities by attacking, blaming, or otherwise tearing others down. Moreover, according to Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, we often focus on activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments while neglecting relationships because we are driven by instant gratification.

Albert Einstein made a similar observation regarding human behavior when he said: Click here to continue reading »”Real Leaders are Other Focused”