While doing some research for a presentation I’ll be giving later this summer, I came upon a study which looked at determining which trait plays a key role in the achievement of long-term goals. After reading a few more studies that dealt with this subject, I noticed that there were some interesting correlations which could be drawn to the field of leadership.

Dr. Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the last few years looking at what unlocks the potential in some of us to become high achievers. In a recent study, Duckworth looked at how different approaches used by students to prepare for a national spelling bee competition impacted the degree of success they achieved, as well as the common trait it revealed amongst the high achievers.

Duckworth et al surveyed 190 finalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and categorized the techniques they used to improve their spelling skills into one of the following three categories – leisure reading, being quizzed by others, or engaging in deliberate practice by studying vocabulary on their own.

Among the three techniques surveyed for this study, deliberate practice was ranked by the students as being the least enjoyable and requiring the most effort when compared to being quizzed or reading for fun. However, this didn’t stop some students from using deliberate practice as their key approach for preparing for the spelling bee. In terms of the competition results, it was found that the students who used deliberate practice to develop their spelling skills performed far better than the others.

The researchers analyzed their results to find out why some of these students chose deliberate practice to prepare for the competition and found that they all shared Click here to continue reading »”Is Grit the Key to Being a Successful Leader?”

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?”

A few days ago, my wife and I decided to take the kids to the beach, to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather that’s been absent in previous years. Admittedly, I did question whether I should bring along my laptop to use some of that lounging-around time to do some writing and such. It only took a moment’s consideration, though, for me to dispel the idea, preferring instead to use this time to watch my kids build sandcastles, or simply floating in the water while my mind drifted off. After all, spending time in such carefree pursuits is what we often associate with taking time off work to enjoy our lives.

Unfortunately, many people are either feeling guilty about taking time off work to go on vacation or worse still, forgoing it altogether in favour of staying ‘on the job’ in order to try and diminish the number of issues currently found on their plates. Many leaders have been very public about their decision to skip taking a vacation this year, rationalizing that it would be unwise to be away from the office given the problems arising from today’s economic climate.

And yet, the reality is that the only unwise thing about these situations is thinking that you’re helping your team by not taking time off from work, a decision that can prove to be more harmful than beneficial for you or your organization. To help prove my point, here are four reasons why you should be going on vacation this summer. Click here to continue reading »”Thinking Of Skipping Your Vacation This Summer? Think Again”