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The Leadership Challenge: Creativity – 3 Tips!

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The Point: The use of a leader’s imagination or original ideas in the workplace has typically been shied away from, primarily because of the “artistic” nature prescribed and partly due to the unmanageable predictability for continuous repetition and outcomes (i.e., results!) But what if the lure of a changed tomorrow is perceived as better than the results generated today? In this post, we’ll take a look at the leadership challenge of creativity and just what you can do to accelerate your creativity as a leader with three (3) tips… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Creativity – 3 Tips!

Management is Science… Leadership is Art

In the day-in/day-out running of your business, whether it be department/division/organization you might recognize the operation as running in status quo fashion. What was good enough yesterday, should be good enough for tomorrow, right? Wrong! Checking accomplishment boxes and maintaining your open-door policy (or better yet Management By Walking Around (MBWA) methodology could very well leave you wondering just how and when the operation got positioned squarely behind the proverbial 8-ball in the business game world of pool.

While creativity for leaders has long been seen as something focused on in startups or other disciplines (most notably academic fields such as anthropology and neuroscience), the need for consistent improved results requires a more expansive/diverse application of the topic. For example, look at your most recent project accomplishments and gage your execution capabilities and life-cycle timelines. A hindsight/post-mortem analysis typically leaves a leader recognizing results short of potential.

3 Tips to Increase Leadership Creativity

So if true potential is to be realized by the leader, what is the proper mindset and processes to be explored? What follows are 3 Tips to assist you (the leader) with increasing creativity.

Tip #1 – Generate Ideas

Ideas are all around you, but often rarely tapped or heard. Why? If you’re looking to generate creativity you need look no further than your stakeholders assisting you as you strive to achieve your goals. Interviewing stakeholders regarding what their ideas are for improvement, and tracking which ideas are backed (versus those that garner little/no support) can reveal sources and opportunities left untapped.

Tip #2 – Enable Collaboration

We often hear that places of business are high on teamwork and/or collaboration within. However common practice probably leaves stakeholders clinging to existing ways of doing business. When teams are allowed to pursue directions not congruent with traditional ways of accomplishing goals is when creativity flourishes.

Tip #3 – Diversify Perspective

When stakeholders from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and areas of subject matter expertise creativity blossoms. Act on putting together cross-functional (those from across the organization) together on the next project to provide diverse perspective from their multi-vantage viewpoints.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the leadership challenge of creativity. While management can be considered a regulated science, leadership often calls for an artful application to overcome project obstacles. Generating ideas from stakeholders, enabling collaboration amongst team members, and diversifying perspective can generate the creativity “spark” needed to deliver future results.

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

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The Point: There is a war for talent taking place, with the best candidates going to those organizations that effectively outflank/outwork their business competitors in the recruiting game. So with NCAA College Football’s Signing Day finally here, we thought it would be interesting to compare/contrast The University of Michigan Football Coach Jim Harbaugh’s tactics that could leave you/your organization with a similar top recruiting class… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

Tree Climbing, Sleepovers, and Sledding… Oh My!

Jim Harbaugh’s transition from the NFL (where he acted as head coach for the San Francisco 49ers until unceremoniously being shown the exit in 2014) to the NCAA (currently acting as The University of Michigan’s Head Football Coach) has been well documented. An almost fairy-tale return to his alma mater brought about a return to glory (Full Disclosure: I’m a Michigan Man and Jim was one of the legendary Michigan quarterbacks under head coach Bo Schembechler). He is known for wearing his fiery emotions like a badge of hotheaded honor and $8 khakis he purchases from Walmart.

What Jim is perhaps not given credit for is his recruiting prowess. With an “at all costs” mentality, he has brought this football program legitimately back onto the college football scene (It’s estimated that he’ll bring in the #5 recruiting class according to ESPN this year). Some might argue that his techniques border on the strange and unorthodox (In his pursuit of players he has climbed a tree in a recruit’s backyard, had sleepovers, and offered to go sledding). Say what you will and want, but call him effective in recruiting for the following FIVE (5) reasons presented in “Tip” format for you to implement to offset the leadership challenge recruiting moments!

Tip #1 – Recruiter Energy

Let’s face reality… Your Human Resources department is probably detached from your business at hand. It’s not that they don’t know what you/your company does, it’s that they don’t KNOW what you/your company does. As such, they display a typical “play it safe” and “no skin in the game” exhibition when it comes to recruiting. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen this played out a hundred times.

Jim is known for his endless energy, raising the recruiting bar and setting precedents to new heights. While your recruiting efforts might not be able to change the players you have conducting the role, there should be an emphasis placed on examining how the recruiting role is changed so as to be conducted with energy.

Tip #2 – Transparent Culture

Typical recruiting tactics have taken the form of that of the applicant heretofore. Both parties want to put their “best foot” forward. However, who’s selling who in the recruiting war? Is the candidate selling the organization or vice versa? Your recruiting efforts shouldn’t shy away from your organization structure nor how you do things (and you should be profoundly proud of both as a leader!)

Tip #3 – The “Finest” of Goals

Harbaugh has gone on record as stating “We’re going to bring the finest student-athletes and character that we can to the University of Michigan.” And so it goes almost without saying that you similarly should be in pursuit of “finest” when it comes to recruiting team members mental capacity and character. Anything short of “finest” shouldn’t be pursued.

Tip #4 – Performance

While most envision the recruiting initiative done/successful once a candidate accepts an offer to join the organization, this is only the beginning for Harbaugh. There is the expectation that performance in the role recruited for not only meet, but exceed expectations. This takes thorough employee engagement and leadership feedback against a backdrop of organizational goals that the employee can immediately tie their performance back to (Your employees know what’s expected of them and can view their actual performance versus goal, right?)

Tip #5 – Expand Your Footprint

Technology has made it relatively easy to expand your geographic footprint in a search for talent. Unlike Harbaugh who has to attract student athletes to a specific geographic location (Ann Arbor, Michigan), you have the luxury of identifying best candidates without geographic boundaries (Are you fully taking advantage of A+ candidates that reside outside your geographic vicinity?)

SUMMARY

In this post, we’ve taken a look at the recruiting process/procedures of Jim Harbaugh and provided 5 Tips on how his success/focus should be yours. If there truly is a war for talent, you can’t afford for a bad recruiting effort to diminish your organizational talent. Remember, your business no matter how technical in nature you might want to believe it is, is still a people business. Having the finest people in the right roles is one of the variables of success you should consider/focus on.

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

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The Point: You have a choice as a leader… To micro or macro manage (i.e., lead) your stakeholders. But here’s the leadership challenge: In order to achieve “Super Boss” status, what’s the proper way then? In this post we’ll take a look at how being a hands-on leader is by far and away the best approach to leading along with four tips for success… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

Hello… I’m a Disengaged Leader!

It happened again (as it had happened like a broken record every time there was a grumbling from a stakeholder)… In managing his department, Tim was provided the latitude to counsel/coach his team under the guise of “Do what you think is best” direction from his superior. However, whenever Tim did in the moment what he thought was his “best” he inevitably received the call from his disengaged leader. This call typically consisted of this disengaged leader asking the question “What did you do?” and worse yet “What did you say?”

While these questions aren’t necessarily in and of themselves bad, they would put Tim in a defensive posture. Having to explain what was done and said left him backtracking on his position. His leader without receiving all the facts typically would overthrow Tim’s authority, and in so doing cajole the stakeholders into recognizing that while the organization’s org chart had him in a leadership role, instead relegated him to an inferior status.

Being a Hands-On Leader

If Tim’s story sounds familiar to you, it should bother you. While leadership is a role best served by allowing team members to perform at their best levels, it’s more than frustrating to have episodes of the disengaged leader undercutting authority, decreasing motivation, and prompting internal thoughts/conversations regarding whether or not you as a leader are truly in the right organization.

The role of a leader is to lead from a distance, but stay in tune with activities so as to insure organizational direction is achieved. Situations often dictate that when boundaries are crossed, or direction is not as intended, that leaders engage in realignment efforts. Nothing shows greater consistency than a leader engaging in what might be seen as the mundane/not worthy day-to-day activities with a “sleeves rolled up” support system. So what should you do to be considered as a hands-on leader?

4 Tips of a Hands-On Leader

The following four (4) tips should be subscribed to in order to increase your effectiveness as a hands-on leader:

Tip #1: Set High Expectations

Become bullish on what your team can accomplish. If you’ve never pushed your team and the leaders within to achieve extraordinary high performance, the shame/blame lies squarely on your shoulders. The thought “perfect is good enough” isn’t just a mindset, it should become your mantra!

Tip #2: Be a Master

You employee smart, ambitious, and adaptable team members, right? If so, trust them to execute. If not, look to recruit/hire those that are no less than four times (4x) as smart as you are. Keep in mind that failure is inevitable, and course correction from failures should be the way you do business!

Tip #3: Encourage Step-Change Growth

Learning and growth are paramount to your people. As such, design atypical growth and development plans that allow your team to springboard forward along a steep learning curve which becomes increasingly steep as successful projects are undertaken/accomplished.

Tip #4: Stay Connected

As a leader you can count on talented people departing from you/your organization. Rip a page from the successful consultant organization model by staying connected with your former associates. Think of it as a talent “Alumni Network” that you can tap into at any given moment and you’ll be afforded the gift of future benefits.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the hands-on leader as well as four tips to execute for success. Avoid becoming the disengaged leader that bares little respect as you grow yourself, your team, and your organization!

 

Sam Palazzolo

 

Are You a Leader Like Mars, Roman God of War? 5 Tips!

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The Point: What if you thought “bigger” than you typically do? I mean, when you tend to aim are you aiming high or too low? If you’re like most of the leaders I work with, you are aiming too low (That might be one of the reasons we’re talking, right?) In this post, we’ll take a look at aiming super high as a leader… So high that you would be considered a leadership God for all to worship! Sounds pretty good right, so read on and identify how you can put the 5 Tips into play for yourself… Enjoy!

Are You Leading at the Tip of the Spear?

I’m a Good Leader!

So you think you’re a “good” leader? What makes you come to that conclusion? Is it because you went to the best schools (So you’re book smart)? Is it possibly because of the results you’ve been able to accomplish in your career (So practical experience)? Perhaps it’s a combination of both schooling in-classroom and mean-streets?

Regardless of where you are on your leadership journey (and it is a definite journey), you probably recognize that the learning is not now or never finished. With changes in economic, market, and employee conditions you’ll have to stay on your tippy-toes if you want to succeed. But just how good a leader are you?

I Want to be Like Mars (Sorry Mike!)

Leaders that I work with in a leadership development and/or executive coaching capacity typically have me as them “If you could be any leader, who would you be?” The natural series of follow up questions includes identifying what is it about that leader that you’d like to emulate and why. So here’s my leader of choice: Mars (The Roman God).

Here are a few of Mars’ Resume Highlights:

  • God of War
  • One of the Most Prominent and Worshipped Gods
  • God of Spring, Growth in Nature, and Fertility
  • Son of Jupiter and Juno
  • Father of Romulus and Remus
  • Romans Style Themselves ‘Sons of Mars’
  • The Male Symbol is Named After Him Representing His Spear/Shield
  • The Month of March is Named After Him

5 Tips to be a Leadership God Like Mars

I’ve done my fair share of research on Mars and here are 5 tips to be a better leader (perhaps God-like if you will):

Tip #5: Destroy everything in your path between where you are now and the goal you want.

Tip #4: Never be without your tools of the trade (For Mars these were his spear and shield).

Tip #3: If you lead others by rolling up your sleeves others will follow you… Consider this leading at the tip of the spear!

Tip #2: There is no place like home, so expand your empire!

Tip #1: Find your true love and your strategic purpose will reveal itself (For Mars it was Venus… Yes, that Venus!)

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve looked at Mars, Roman God of War and provided five tips to help you lead like him. You want to be the best leader possible, you’re going to have to aim higher, think bigger, and act. Now that you know a little about Mars, what’s stopping you?

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Accountability – 5 Tips

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The Point: Have you ever sat in a meeting and heard the leader swear that from now on things were going to be different? How exactly is this “different” theme going to be carried out? Well, the leader swears again that they’re going to start holding people accountable. Accountable for what is one question you might be asking? Another question you should be asking is who is going to hold the leader themselves accountable? In this post, we’ll take a look at leadership accountability and provide five tips to better leader accountability efforts… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Accountability – 5 Tips

This Isn’t Oprah (It’s not even Ellen!)

I’ve seen a lot of leaders as an executive coach and leadership development coordinator. I’ve been fortunate to work with some really great leadership at Fortune 100 to Main Street organizations. Along the way on this leadership development journey, one aspect has rang the “failure” bell of many a leader looking to do good but ending up with bad results. That one aspect… Accountability. Accountability as a leader has at its core the ability to “count” on someone for doing something.

Too often leaders like their stakeholders to do what they say, but not as they’ve done (or are planning to do). In other words, some leaders are great at spouting off advice/hyperbole/recommendations to their stakeholders when all the while they should be heading their own advice. Unfortunately, Oprah (or Ellen) never show up in their workplace to ask them those really “hard” questions to get the leader to stop and reflect on what will/won’t work (You know those really hard questions… The ones that make you stop, think, and cry as you blubber out your response to Oprah).

5 Tips to Enhance Leadership Accountability

So what is our leader in development to do?(You are a leader in development, continuously learning, right?) What follows are five accountability tips for leaders searching to achieve better results:

Tip #5: Establish Expectations

It’s awfully hard to hold yourself/your stakeholders accountable if you don’t establish expectations. What are you going to do, by when, with what resources are expectation (or goal) setting basics. But begin to overcome the leadership challenge of accountability by beginning with the outcome, or the end in mind.

Tip #4: Determine Action Plans

As Marshall Goldsmith says, what got you here won’t get you there. However, if you know where there is and you don’t establish an action plan to get there you might as well not set out in the first place. Having an action plan that clearly establishes how you will get to your expectation outcome will provide you with a roadmap, one that if followed correctly and the current situation (market factors, competition, customer engagement, etc.) remains the same.

Tip #3: Identify Key Performance Indicators

You’ll need to know if you are to stay the course originally outlined, or pivot as needed to better overcome the situation identified. I know a leader that never measures his outcome until the end. They perceive the measurements to be some kind of leadership cherry on top of the sundae, when in reality it turns out being something a lot less savory. Knowing what your measurements are and taking them at routine moments can assist in letting you know where you are, how far you’ve traveled since the projects inception, how much is left to go, and identifying change in course moments.

Tip #2: Forget Hope

Hope is great when wishing for a gift to come true. It’s perhaps a deadly moment when it comes to organizational health. Simply put… Hope is not a strategy. As such, eliminate hope and the leadership challenge gets a lot easier.

Tip #1: Accept Ownership and Responsibility

You want others to follow you. You want to see things through. You’ll need then to roll up your sleeves and insure that the initiative gets done. While this doesn’t mean that you need to do every task associated (you should still look to delegate), it does mean that you’ll want to do everything possible to make certain the initiative is completed on time as expected.

SUMMARY

In this post we looked at leadership accountability. The leadership challenge at hand can be a daunting one, but putting into practice the five tips discussed can greatly enhance accountability for both leaders and stakeholders.

Sam Palazzolo