Regardless of whether the economy is going well or not, one thing that’s remained consistent in the workplace over the last few decades is the reality that each of us is responsible for managing our careers and with it, the opportunities we obtain for professional growth and development. But how exactly do we obtain these opportunities to get ahead in our career? That’s the focus of my conversation with executive coach and writer Joel Garfinkle in this episode of “Leadership Biz Cafe”.

Joel has been recognized as one of the Top 50 leadership coaches in the US, having worked with executives from many leading companies including Oracle, Google, Amazon, Ritz-Carlton, and Gap. He has also been featured in a number of respected media outlets such as ABC News, The New York Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal.

Joel has written seven books including his latest “Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level” in which he discusses the three key steps you should take to ensure you get those opportunities and promotions you need to move ahead in your career.

Over the course of our conversation, Joel and I discuss:

• How to get over our fear of increasing our visibility at work so we can ensure those in charge are aware of the value of our contributions.
• Why we need to speak up more and share our thoughts and ideas at meetings and the benefits we’ll gain from doing so.
• How we can find out how others perceive us and what we can do to ensure we’re creating the perceptions we need to get ahead.
• The importance and value of getting feedback to help you increase your visibility and influence in your organization.
• What it means to be influential and how it’s not dependent on what title/position you have.

As I mentioned at the end of the show, Click here to continue reading »”Leadership Biz Cafe Podcast #7 – Joel Garfinkle On How To Get Ahead In Your Career”

As this week marks the official start of Spring for most northern countries, I wanted to take the opportunity to revisit an idea I wrote about sometime ago about a seasonal event in these parts and the lessons we can glean from it on leadership and organizational success.

In addition to the appearance of the first seedlings in our gardens, one of the most emblematic symbols of the arrival in Spring in this area is the return of Canada geese flying in V-formation across the sky. Although I’ve discussed the lessons on teamwork and collaboration that we can learn from this seasonal migration, seeing these birds in flight over the weekend brought to mind some additional lessons we can apply in how we serve those we have the responsibility to lead.

1. Encourage your employees to develop their skills
One of the reasons why Canada geese fly in V-formation is in order to help reduce air drag, where the birds at the front essentially reduce the air resistance so that the birds at the back of the flock have an easier time flying.

Naturally, this means that the birds in the front expend the most energy flying and consequently, experience fatigue before the other birds do. This is the reason why this particular bird formation shifts so much as the other birds move up to take the lead, giving the birds who were flying at the front a chance to rest and recuperate.

It’s a smart strategy as it not only allows the birds to share the workload, but it also ensures that the flock is not dependent on a few strong birds to help them fly over the great distances of their migratory path.

When it comes to managing your team or organization, Click here to continue reading »”A Springtime Leadership Lesson From The Birds”

When it comes to writing a blog, one of the unfortunate realities you have to deal with is addressing online plagiarism (for those who aren’t familiar, online plagiarism is when someone posts your content on their site without proper attribution for who created it). In most cases, this occurs because some malicious site owner wants to use the content you created in order to increase traffic to their own site.

However, as is the case with most interactions, sometimes the line isn’t so clear and it’s hard to know whether the offending act was done intentionally or merely out of a lack of awareness. It’s this kind of situation that a friend and fellow blogger recently found herself in and which she sought my advice about to figure out what she should do to address it.

In this case, my friend had come across a website which had taken a recent post of hers and re-published it in its entirety on their blog without her permission. What’s more, the only attribution given for the post was a vague ‘article source’ link – something few readers would bother to click on in order to find out who wrote the piece.

Following our conversation about this situation, she contacted the site owner and thankfully, ended up with a satisfactory resolution for both parties.

Of course, bloggers and others who create content online are not the only ones who have to deal with this problem. Indeed, most of us have at one time or another faced a similar situation of having someone take advantage of our contributions or worse, taking credit for the work itself. And unfortunately, few of us are lucky enough to see these situations resolved in an amicable fashion that reinforces our sense of teamwork and fair play.

So how do you address a co-worker whose taking credit for your work without creating a new source of conflict within your team and workplace? Here are three steps you can take to ensure a successful and mutually-beneficial outcome. Click here to continue reading »”How to Handle A Credit-Stealing Co-Worker”

The following is a guest post by Jason Monaghan.

Doritos and effective leadership. Not an easy combination to draw a lesson from, right?

You might be surprised.

If you watched the Doritos commercial during the Super Bowl then you realize that their ingenious use of language and video led you to an engaging conclusion: that Doritos are better than, well, most things. We can learn a valuable lesson about effective leadership through their messaging and how it translates to everyday life.

Leadership is much like the techniques used in Doritos’ Super Bowl commercial. Effective leadership is the process of developing a space where people can use their creativity to fill in the blanks and develop new products and services for the market. You provide the vision and the team collaborates to drive that vision home. The Doritos Ad campaign accomplished this in the following three ways: Click here to continue reading »”How Is Leadership Like The Doritos Super Bowl Ad?”