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The Leadership Challenge: What Legacy Are You Creating?

August 11, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Ask yourself: What legacy are you creating and leaving behind? Whatever a leader does and the way in which they conduct themselves with their team members and colleagues, leaves behind a legacy. A legacy which can either be a source of inspiration for future aspiring leaders or a model to avoid. At Tip of the Spear, we believe in creating a legacy which will prove that you succeeded in the leadership challenge with flying colors… Enjoy!

The way that a leader motivates and trains their team members, ensures their personal and career development, mentors and coaches them and inspires them to perform at their best. This not only proves beneficial for the employees, but also leaves behind a golden path for others to follow.

The leadership challenge also includes leaving a positive legacy behind, which can always serve as a source of great motivation as well as inspire individuals to perform at their best.

A Leader’s Legacy

In their book “The Leadership Challenge”, Kousez and Posner have illustrated the relative importance of a positive legacy left behind by a successful leader.

The authors assert that leaving a legacy means that a leader utilizes their talents to bring about a positive impact in the organization, employee attitude, and their community or society as a whole, which can be linked with their committed efforts.

Leaders have a responsibility to do something significant, and when they utilize their efforts to inspire a positive change and attitude, it leaves behind a legacy which serves as a guiding path for others to follow.

Create A Lasting Legacy

Leaders should utilize care to leave a lasting legacy which will always be an inspiration for many, and serve as their guide in challenging situations. Leaders lead by example, and that is what a legacy does. It leaves behind a guide for aspirants to learn from the actions, methods and conduct of their leaders and mentor their team members to help them achieve their potential.

It’s All About Service, or Your Ability as a Leader to Serve

To ensure a lasting legacy, leaders should serve their team members and should never take employee trust for granted. Intelligent leaders know and realize that it is not merely their own vision, rather the combined effort of many, and the result of a contributed discussion, which leads to success in the end.

Great leaders are never hesitant to try out something new after a careful evaluation of the pros and cons, and also inspire their team members to utilize their best potential to achieve something great in life. They exercise and inspire courage to make the necessary and hard decisions, thus leaving behind a legacy for performing at one’s best by utilizing all the talents, and never taking a back seat or accepting defeat as the only option.

Summary

Leaders recognize and accept failure as a part of life, and encourage others to keep on exerting effort to improve and master their (through leadership development). Their mentoring and coaching, along with the most effective method of leading by example, tends to leave behind a legacy which proves a valuable form of guidance and benefit for many.

Any leader, who wishes to succeed in the leadership challenge with outstanding accomplishments, needs to leave behind a memorable and beneficial legacy behind, through their conduct and effort.

To learn more about Tip of the Spear’s Leadership Development offerings, including The Leadership Challenge program, CLICK HERE.

The Most Important Leadership Communication Skills Training You Must Have!

August 8, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: At Tip of the Spear, based on our research it is an undisputed fact that when it comes to traits that define a successful leader, communication ranks at the very top! However, communication is itself a vast subject which can further be divided into several skills/subcategories. In this blog post, we discuss why listening is the most important leadership communication skill, and why it should be a core component of every communication skills training for leaders… Enjoy!

Listening Creates A Loyal Workforce

The statistics are alarming. Some 40% of people in the workforce feel unappreciated and undervalued at work. Most of them either look for new jobs, or at least wait for an opportunity to come their way. This has dire consequences for your employee retention efforts. But if listening is emphasized more in communication skills training for leaders, you will be able to reach out to dissatisfied employees in new and meaningful ways, making them see that the company genuinely cares about them.

Listening Provides New Insights

Another key trait of leaders is that they are always learning. This enables them to come up with innovative and creative solutions to new challenges. Listening helps leaders in this respect as well. This is especially true when you actively listen to critics and those who disagree with you. Doing so will broaden your horizons and offer you unique perspectives on unprecedented business issues.

Listening Brings Out the Best in Employees

This leadership development hinges on the first point about employee motivation. As you listen to your team (not just what they say but their body language and general demeanor as well), you will learn more about their strengths and weakness, and you can leverage the former to make them more productive. This will ultimately reflect positively on your bottom-line.

Listening Engages Clients

Active listening isn’t purely restricted to your employees. You should also make it a point to let your clients speak their heart out. Offer them a chance to provide honest feedback on your website and social network. Seep this feedback in and you will better know how to cater to the needs of your target market. This will dramatically improve customer loyalty as they will look at your business as one that values its clients.

Listening Promotes Clarity

In today’s world of instant communication, listening is a lost art. Everyone is busy voicing their opinions, with hardly any message truly seeping in anyone’s mind and making an impact. In such an environment, a leader that speaks less and listens more will automatically become a revolutionary (and often is thought of as saying things that are more important).

Summary

To sum up, communication skills training for leaders is crucial. Listening makes you a better leader when you engage in the art of listening-not to have your opinions validated, but to be challenged and to learn something new. You establish your authority as a leader through listening, and if you don’t believe you have the skill developed as much as you should, consider leadership development training on the topic. Conventional wisdom may dictate that speaking establishes more authority, but then again you are not always right. So stop pretending you know everything and listen more as a leader!

To learn more about improving your communication skills for leaders, visit Tip of the Spear’s Leadership Development program offering “Communicate with Influence” by CLICKING HERE.

The Leadership Challenge: What Makes a Leader Lead?

August 8, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: We have a saying at Tip of the Spear that goes something like this… Leaders Lead! In other words, when it comes time to take on an initiative, as a leader you need to position yourself at the “tip” of the initiative. Learning to lead and adopting a leadership role, is both a responsibility and a challenge in life. Leadership development prepares individuals with a drive and urge to lead from the front… Enjoy!

While implementing leadership development programs to polish and hone the skills in the future leaders, along with a number of other essential factors, the art of leading is given significant importance.

Teaching leaders how to lead can be taught, but the drive and initiative to lead is something which is an innate capability of an individual, which inspires them to perform at their best. The motivating force and the inspiring factor, are unique for every leader, but usually involve some common elements which are found similar in good leaders.

Vision And Purpose

A leader is prompted to lead when they have a unique vision that they want to share with their team members for the benefit of the company. Every leader has a unique concept and ideal vision for the achievement of a goal, and they lead from the front to successfully realize their aspired vision. This could also be a goal/vision shared through the corporate channel (Think how you might be better suited to share the company goals with your team).

A purpose in life is a great driving force which serves as an effective mode of inspiring an individual to adopt a leadership position. When an individual realizes their purpose in life, they are more than willing to lead from the front, and that is how leadership development progresses. (Conant)

Leadership development offers each leader with an opportunity to exercise an initiative and strive for the best.

Leading By Example

Good leaders are also prompted to act and take initiative, if they feel a need to lead their team members by example. The need to lead is prompted by the requirement of a responsible individual, who can inspire and motivate employees to perform at their maximum potential. Notice that I said “responsible individual” and know that you can infer that leadership is not for everyone!

Desire To Serve

Great leaders are also prompted to lead by their desire to serve their people. They utilize their efforts and talents, to provide convenience for their team, help them perform to their maximum potential, and encourage them to seek challenging tasks for their personal development.

Their desire to serve and take care of their team members proves to be the motivating force for them.

Urge To Make A Difference

Many leaders are motivated to lead, through the use of leadership development programs, which inspire and encourage their interest to lead. Development of leadership skills results in the urge to lead and make a difference by utilizing the skills and talents. So why do you do what you do as a leader? Is it fame? Is it glory? Could it be a bigger purpose?

Response To Challenges

Leaders are also inspired to lead when they encounter challenging situations and projects, which prompt them to take the lead and manage their team from the front. A natural and gifted leader acts as a responsible individual, who guides and instructs their team members, understand their limitations and encourage them to perform their best with the challenge at hand. While we’d love to say that all leadership moments happen in the “proactive” moment, we realize that there will be those moments when leaders find themselves/their teams squarely behind the 8-ball of business (or life!)

Leave A Legacy

Many leaders have a desire to leave a legacy which can be a source of inspiration and encouragement for others. Their desire to leave behind something worthwhile, and make a change for the better, prompts them to utilize their passion and talents, and conduct themselves in such a way that fellow workers are motivated to perform at their best. Unfortunately, and we see this way too often at Tip of the Spear, these legacy leaving moments don’t typically occur until a leader has experienced significant time on the job (So later in one’s career).

Summary

So here is the leadership challenge in a nutshell: Leaders need to lead from the front. However, just because you assume this pole-position doesn’t mean that all will be smooth sailing from there. Leadership development brings out and polishes the leadership skills of an individual, thus preparing them for a leadership role, whenever the need arises.

For more information on Tip of the Spear Leadership Development offerings, including our use of The Leadership Challenge, CLICK HERE.

What Superman (or Your Executive Coach) Would Tell You You’re Doing Wrong as a Leader

August 7, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: You’re not Superman… So how can you achieve extraordinary results day-in and day-out? Centered Executive Coaching helps organizations achieve goals and move forward by empowering their leaders. However, even the best coach in the world cannot help you if you are not receptive to constructive criticism. A key trait of leadership is to admit ones own weakness(es). In the following post, we’ll take a look at the key problems that an executive coach may identify in your personality traits as a leader and how you can improve them… Enjoy!

Looking for a Temporary Solution to a Permanent Problem

In the corporate world, some problems are ‘permanent’ in that they keep recurring from time to time. Examples include office politics, financial loss, and external threats like lawsuits and mergers. There is no temporary solution to these problems! However, you can effectively manage them without exacerbating yourself. Only an experienced executive coach can help you understand this distinction so that you are not focusing your energies on unrealizable goals.

Downplaying your Abilities

Following from the previous point, an executive is seldom free from internal or external business pressures. However, some executives make their situation even more complicated with negative self-talk. They start to doubt their abilities and question their very role in the organization. A leadership development and/or executive coach helps you to identify your strengths so that you can leverage them to overcome problems, while identifying issues so that solutions can be sought. Sometimes, all you need is an honest assessment of your skills, which is a core aspect of executive coaching.

Doing a Balancing Act

Nothing strains your capacity as an executive more than the mistake of balancing everything on your shoulders. For example, you simultaneously want to become a better planner, eloquent speaker, and efficient manager, while also trying to improve work-life balance. However, having your focus on several things can easily drain your motivation so much so that you fail to make any progress. Results-oriented executive coaching helps you identify each area that needs development, and then tackle them one-by-one for better results.

Taking your Time and Energy For Granted

This follows from the previous point… Some executives think they are Superman. They have a reservoir of time and energy, due to which they say “Yes” to everyone and take responsibility for virtually everything that happens in their company. This is a crucial mistake! Your executive coach will help you prioritize your task, help you manage your time, and boost your confidence to say “No” and delegate more often.

Summary

To sum-up, there are serious behavioral issues that hinder the success of executives, and thereby their organizations. I’ve seen how leadership development and executive coaching can help leaders understand those areas that need improvement so that they (and their businesses) become more efficient (and profitable!)

To learn more about Tip of the Spear’s Centered Executive Coaching programs, CLICK HERE.

Picking the Best Executive Coaching Initiative

August 6, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: So you’ve decided (or had decided for you) as a leader you should have an executive coaching engagement. In a previous post, we discussed how you should go about selecting the right coach. In this post, we’ll tackle foundational elements that will allow you to head into your coaching initiative so that you achieve your best results… Enjoy!

Now more than ever, business executives are enrolling in leadership development and executive coaching programs. These programs are no longer seen as signs of trouble (a.k.a. Penalty Box situations). Instead, top executives are somewhat expected and encouraged to take professional mentoring as a part of their leadership development at one point or another. As much as 80% of companies hire executive coaches, mentors, or external consultants. In the following paragraphs, you will get helpful tips on how to get the most out of an executive coaching initiative:

Be Clear on What You Want to Achieve

As the economy fluctuates, technology advances, and employees come and go, business leaders face the pressure of providing immediate results in challenging environments. Hence, executive coaching as a form of leadership development becomes somewhat of a necessity. However, you should be clear on your goals (i.e. What you want to achieve from the coaching sessions).

Of course, executive coaching is a highly customized service since challenges change from organization to organization. Your goals could fall somewhere along the lines of understanding your strengths and weakness, redefining your values and purposes, making you a better planner, broadening your perspectives, and maintaining confidentiality for example.

Find a Goal Oriented Coach

While you need to define your expectations, your coach should be goal-oriented, discussing objectives and goals for the sessions early on, and also guiding you in what kind of approach they will follow. For instance, they should clarify whether the focus will be on personal development or organizational planning. Coaches should also let you know what their role will be during the sessions and describe the degree to which they will challenge and stretch you, and what kind of communication they expect from you.

Determine Duration and Medium

Determine which meeting arrangement works best for you; face-to-face, virtual meeting space, phone, email, etc. You also need to discuss how the sessions are planned and connected, and how much time elapses between them. Your coach may assign some ‘homework’ between sessions. While some coaches only communicate with you during sessions, others leave post-session communication open to help you if an important issue arises. It’s important to identify what works best for you.

Be Willing to Learn

Leadership development and executive coaching works best if you’re open to the experience. That is why you/your company is paying thousands of dollars by the hour to invest in your development. You should be honest about your abilities, be patient while being evaluated, and be open to change. You may be a good learner, but you also need to be enthusiastic about the learning process. Learn from others but do it your own way, and take responsibility for whatever happens.

Summary

Ultimately, since it’s you/your organization that matters most during a coaching initiative. You should leverage the skills, experience, and insights of your chosen coach. However, know that the ultimate success/failure of the initiative is dependent upon yourself. Picking the best results oriented executive coaching requires an assessment of your goals, clear communication with the trainer, and the willingness to change.

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