Greetings Leaders!

So… it happened again. You’re at work, trying to make things happen, and your boss doesn’t listen. Or if she’s listening, she either ignores you or runs over you. You think you’re a good leader. You have a proven track record. You get results. Yet for some reason your boss just doesn’t acknowledge your capabilities. The result? You end up frustrated. Your boss ends up frustrated. At times you’re not even sure if you can show up for another day of work. What are  your options and what should you do?

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Greetings Leaders!

I was involved in a discussion the other day with a manager about team members that are poor performers. What do you do with them? Well, there are the textbook answers and then there is reality. Read on for some practical tips.

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Greetings Leaders!

As a project management expert, I often get to see first hand how an organization measures their effectiveness in project management. I find it intriguing that so many of them, don’t really understand what they are trying to measure. They just look at their list of projects and if they all get done, then they are successful. If they don’t they are not successful. Many don’t measure it at all. Measuring project management effectiveness (PME) is important, but overlooked by many. What about your organization?

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Greetings Leaders!

Statistically speaking, the 80/20 rule seems to apply to almost every situation. When it comes to your staff, it means that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. What would happen if we could somehow raise the level of performance of the 80%, just a bit? Or better yet, how can we move the bell curve to the right so that 40% of the people do 80% of the work? By moving the bell curve to the right, if the original 20% stay productive, and you increase the productivity of 25% of the rest of your staff, the amount of work that got done would have to go up. So, how do we go about accomplishing this?

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Greetings Leaders!

As consumers and customers, I’m sure all of us have had both good and bad experiences with customer service. There are businesses and establishments that we remember fondly, usually because someone there went out of their way to make our experience delightful. On the other hand, there are businesses that we would never recommend to a friend and I’m sure you can recount your worst experience in detail, even though it may have been 20 years ago.

As a leader, how do we ensure  that our staff are giving the best customer service available? Or, if they are not working in customer service, how do we get them to perform at a level where the organization can excel?

Let me rephrase the question. Is it the employees responsibility to ensure great customer service, or it management and leadership? If I walk into a coffee  house and am ignored by the staff while they chat about the party they had last night, whose fault is it?

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Greetings Leaders!

While teaching a project management class last night, we got into a discussion about social media, technology and how communicating can overwhelm you due to the many ways we now communicate. Many of the younger (under 30) students said that they had a hard time managing their communications because of the myriad of ways that people communicate today. It was not too long ago that people joked about being addicted to the “crackberry”, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Today we communicate by E-mail (old school), texting, instant messaging, phone calls (really old school), twitter and other social media tools. These make us more accessible than ever before, and if you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself texting, twittering, instant messaging and emailing all at the same time. With all these demands for your time coming at you at once, it can be overwhelming. Here are some tips to getting your life back under control.

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Greetings Leaders!

This may seem like a rhetorical question to you, but the answer is important on several levels. On an organizational level, it is vital, because managers and leaders are very different kinds of people. Both are needed in an organization, but if you have the wrong people in the wrong slots, disaster awaits. If you have a manager slotted where you need a leader (not leadership – but a leader), or you have a leader acting as a manager, you are asking for trouble. The manager won’t lead, and the leader will get bored and leave. On a personal level, you need to understand which one you are, and ensure that you are in a position that utilizes your strengths. So how do you know if you are a manager or a leader?

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Greetings Leaders!

This is the 15th posting in the series The Path of the Honorable Leader.

Accountability. Holding others and self to be responsible for one’s actions. The Honorable Leader knows that there are no excuses. That whatever we do, we are responsible for the results. If we can take credit for the good, we should also be willing to take credit for the not so good, or sometimes, the bad. To hold people accountable means to love them enough to hold them responsible for their actions. Much like we teach our children the to be responsible for what they do, the Honorable Leader knows that this is something we should continue doing as adults. By holding others accountable, we build the framework for growth. That a lack of accountability leads to reckless actions, pain, setbacks, and a life of mediocrity.

Holding others accountable is hard. To tell someone they missed the mark, while encouraging them to do better, takes time and energy. It puts the leader in a vulnerable position as he must sometimes buck against the headwind. His may be the lone voice that calls for reasonableness and accountability. Too often, leaders fail to hold others accountable. That in their quest for power, prestige and profits, they sacrifice accountability. The Honorable Leader knows better. Accountability is a cornerstone for long term growth. Accountability, while sometimes painful, is the only way to sustained progress.

As an Honorable Leader, hold others, and yourself, accountable for your actions.

All the best!
All the time!
JT

Related articles

• Affordable accountability: Who pays the price? (thehighcalling.org)
• Five Steps For Leaders To Elevate Their Purpose (leadchangegroup.com)
• Please Don’t Hold Me Accountable (katharineweinmann.com)

Greetings Leaders!

As my wife and I raised our children we had many debates about what and when to tell them certain things about life. When do we tell them about Santa Clause? When was the best time to explain the birds and the bees? When was it ok to let them go see a PG-13 movie that contained heavy references to sex, alcohol or drugs? (I threw in the last one, because while this was a no-brainer for us, we just saw several families with very young children at the movies watching “Just Go With It.”) While we all have different answers to these questions, it is obvious that we don’t tell our kids everything, until they are ready.

I believe in honesty and integrity, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re obligated as leaders to tell people everything we know, all the time. There seems to be a growing movement out there that seems to believe that leaders are obligated to be completely transparent. As a leader… don’t fall into this trap.

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Greetings Leaders!

I’ve been hired to salvage troubled projects before. Sometimes I was successful, other times… well, not so much. Trouble projects are not hard to identify. In fact, it’s relatively easy. They’re chronically late, over budget, have poor quality, and the team is often in disarray. If you’ve been a project manager for any length of time, you will certainly have managed a troubled project. Saving a troubled project is not rocket science, but it is one of the more difficult things to do.

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