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How Are You Doing With Your Leadership New Year's Resolutions?

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Now that we are about half way through 2019, how are you doing with sticking with your New Year's resolutions?

If you selected some from this list below, great. And, if you need a few more to tackle during the rest of this year, find some that you know achieving will make you a better leader.
Don't micromanageDon't be a bottleneckFocus on outcomes, not minutiaeBuild trust with your colleagues before a crisis comesAssess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all timesConduct annual risk reviewsBe courageous, quick and fairTalk more about values more than rulesReward how a performance is achieved and not only the performanceConstantly challenge your team to do betterCelebrate your employees' successes, not your ownErr on the side of taking actionCommunicate clearly and oftenBe visibleEliminate the cause of a mistakeView every problem as an opportunity to growSummarize group consensus after each decision point during a meetingPraise when compliments are earnedBe …
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Always Follow Through

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Set a good example for your employees and follow through on everything you say you are going to do.
If you promise to get an employee an answer, get it for him or her. If you say you'll send a team member a report, do so. As the Nike campaign/slogan so aptly says, "Just Do It."
Too many leaders don't follow through. Perhaps they get busy. Perhaps they forget. However, following through is critical to keeping your team effective and efficient. And it's necessary for gaining respect from your employees.
Following through also means doing so in a timely fashion. If you take too long to follow through, it's as bad as not following through at all.

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Eight Actions To Show You Value Your Employees

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There are eight specific actions business leaders can take to show that they value their employees, according to Andrew Leigh, author of the book, Ethical Leadership -- Creating and Sustaining an Ethical Business Culture.

Those eight actions are: Attention -- Pay attention to what people say to show your interest.Listen -- Make time to hear what colleagues, peers and employees have to say to show you care.Positive Language -- Find words and phrases to show employees they're needed.  Examples are, "We couldn't have accomplished this without you," "That was really useful."Document -- Put praise in writing to increase its impact.  Make clear where the credit belongs.Micro Sessions -- Create two-way communication sessions.Visits -- Schedule visits to teams and work areas.Stories -- Share stories that highlight unusual contributions and provide your personal response to them.Invite -- Ask people to contact you directly with their issues and concerns -- not to by…
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How To Be A Good Coach

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Former Verizon Wireless CEO, Denny F. Strigl offers these tips for how to be a good coach to an employee. He explains that good coaches help performers by:
Keeping them focused.Giving them objective, helpful feedback.Acting as a sounding board for new approaches.Identifying blind spots that may be holding the performer back.Reinforcing key values, principles, and behaviors that improve performance.Recognizing positive behavior and performance.Providing encouragement after setbacks and failuresSetting "stretch" goals.Acting as an accountability partner.Strigl believes that some managers fail in their coaching roles because they:
View coaching as babysitting.See coaching as only correcting performance.Don't spend enough time with their employees.Are reluctant to criticize.Have social relationships with their employees.Have a "sink-or-swim" philosophy.Believe coaching is not helpful or meaningful."Coaching may actually save time by preventing extensive retraini…
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Learn To Take Risks

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Inspirational leadership wisdom came awhile back from Bahram Akradi, the CEO of Life Time Fitness.
From that health club's monthly fitness magazine, Experience Life, Akradi says: Once we get comfortable in our habitual patterns, we may fail to notice when they have outworn their useful purpose, or when new alternatives might serve us better.Once you've encountered a second way of seeing things, you're more likely to entertain the possibility of a third and fourth way, too.Do something that makes you just a little bit uncomfortable--and that renders you a little more awake.Thanks Akradi for encouraging us to break out from predictability.

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Words To Lead By

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Words to lead by:

"It's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - President Harry S. Truman.

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." - President Woodrow Wilson.
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How To Be A Super Boss

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"Superbosses embrace certain practices that good bosses don't, and they do even more of the productive things that good bosses do," says Syney Finkelstein, author of the book, Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent.
What's more, according to Finkelstein's findings from ten years of research and two hundred interviews, superbosses focus on identifying promising newcomers, inspiring their best work, and launching them into highly successful careers, while also expanding their own networks and building stronger companies.
Most important, "regenerating the talent pool is the single most important thing any leader can do to survive and prosper," adds Finkelstein.
Sydney Finkelstein
Superbosses also do this: Create master-apprentice relationshipsRely on the cohort effectSay good-bye on good termsAdapt the job or organization to fit the talentTake chances on unconventional talentLook for new talent poolsHire on the sportAccept churn
Finkelste…
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