2016 New Year's Resolutions For Leaders

It's time to select your New Year's Resolutions for 2016.

To get you started, how about selecting one or more of these 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders?

Don't micromanage
Don't be a bottleneck
Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times
Conduct annual risk reviews
Be courageous, quick and fair
Talk more about values more than rules
Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
Constantly challenge your team to do better
Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own
Err on the side of taking action
Communicate clearly and often
Be visible
Eliminate the cause of a mistake
View every problem as an opportunity to grow
Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
Praise when compliments are earned
Be decisive
Say "thank you" and sincerely mean it
Send written thank you notes
Listen carefully and don't multi-task while listening
Teach something new to your team
Show respect for all team members
Follow through when you promise to do something
Allow prudent autonomy
Respond to questions quickly and fully
Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
Give credit where credit is due
Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
Foster mutual commitment
Admit your mistakes
Remove nonperformers
Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific
Hire to complement, not to duplicate
Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
Show trust
Encourage peer coaching
Encourage individualism and welcome input
Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
Be willing to change your decisions
Be a good role model
Be humble
Explain each person's relevance
End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
Read leadership books to learn
Set clear goals and objectives
Reward the doers
Know yourself
Use job descriptions
Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
Share bad news, not only good news
Start meetings on time
Discipline in private
Seek guidance when you don't have the answer
Tailor your motivation techniques
Support mentoring - both informal and formal mentoring
Don't interrupt
Ask questions to clarify
Don't delay tough conversations
Have an open door policy
Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
Do annual written performance appraisals
Insist on realism
Explain how a change will impact employees' feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible

Comments

How To Be More Impactful Through Entrepreneurial Giving

This Thanksgiving as you think about what you are grateful for, think, too, about how you can be more giving. To help you discover a more giving you, read the new book, A Talent For Giving , by John Studzinski . It introduces the meaning of entrepreneurial giving - a hands-on approach to philanthropy that harnesses skills, expertise, and resources. Through thought-provoking insights, A Talent for Giving offers a powerful new roadmap for impact as Studzinski shows how anyone, regardless of financial means, can become a force for change. You do that by maximizing your Talent , Time , and Treasure and by embracing these values alongside others like Trust , Technology , and Trial , according to Studzinski. “Giving is any act of kindness or generosity that recognizes and respects the dignity of another human being,” shares Studzinski. “It can be something very simple – a smile, or a hug or a few words. And on a larger scale, it’s giving your time,...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

Six Steps For Discussing Poor Performance With An Employee

As a leader, the time will come when you will have to speak with an employee about his or her poor performance. Here are six steps that will guide you through that process: Tell him what performance is in need of change and be specific. Tell him how his actions negatively affect the team. Let the discussion sink in. Set expectations of performance improvement and timeframe, and get his agreement on the desired outcome. Remind him that he is a valuable part of the team and that you have confidence his performance will improve. Don't rehash the discussion later. You made your point. Give him to make his improvement.

How To Build A High-Performing, Resilient Organization With Purpose

“It’s time to get intentional about organizational culture and to make it strong on purpose,” explain James D. White and Krista White , authors of the new book Culture Design: How To Build A High-Performing, Resilient Organization With Purpose . “Strong company cultures, deliberately shaped, are the difference between businesses that are great versus those that are just good enough,” they add. The authors define organizational culture as a set of actions, habits, rituals, and beliefs that determine how work gets done, how decisions get made, and how people experience their workplaces. "Strong cultures don't emerge by accident," share the authors. "They're built—with clarity, consistency, and design. This book is your guide to intentionally designing a culture that is resilient, inclusive, powerful, and effective." Informed by over thirty years of operating experience across sectors and in the boardroom, the authors offer these strategies for desig...

Learn How To Identify And Overcome Your Leadership Blindspots

"A blindspot is an unrecognized weakness or threat that has the potential to undermine a leader's success," explains author Robert Bruce Shaw . "Blindspots are tenacious and can reappear, causing problems over a leader's entire career." These blindspots can cause great harm when leaders fail to see what is right in front of them. Compounding the challenge says Shaw is that: "People who are smart and self-assured are often very skillful at justifying their thinking and behavior--to the point of being in denial about their weaknesses and the threats they face. One of the burdens of moving up is that the complexity of the decisions leaders face increases at the same time as their ability to reveal their vulnerabilities decreases . Blindspots are both the result of individual traits and situational factors. According to Shaw, there are 2 0 common leadership blindspots that fall under these four categories : Self Team Company Markets ...

Learn The Extraordinary Power Of Caring For Your People Like Family

“Everybody truly does matter. No idea could be simpler or more powerful. It is an idea that has unlimited potential, because people have unlimited potential—to surprise, delight, and elevate themselves, one another and all around the world,” profess Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia , authors of the newly expanded 10 th anniversary edition of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power Of Caring For Your People Like Family . The book’s first edition, premiered in 2015 and has sold more than110,000 copies and is available in seven languages. This book is about truly human leadership that creates off-the-charts morale, loyalty, creativity, and business performance. It manifests the reality that every single person matters, just like in a family. It’s not a cliché on a mission statement; it’s the bedrock of a company’s success. “The startling truth, supported by research, is that your leader has a greater impact on your health than your doctor, therapist, or even your par...

How Businesses Hone And Also Avoid Drift

“Honing, not sharpening is a metaphor for how successful businesses keep their competitive edge,” explain authors Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach , authors of the new book, Hone: How Leaders Defy Drift . “Today’s leaders seem to be highly focused on increasingly frequent transformation (akin to knife sharpening), when in fact they would be better served by building daily habits to hone their organization like a chef hones a knife.” Sharpening : This process restores a dull knife edge by removing material to create a new, sharper edge. Honing : This process realigns the existing edge of a knife, maintaining its sharpness without removing material. The book is a call to action for leaders to build the capability and mindset to hone their organizations, minimizing—but not eliminating—the need for transformation. “Choosing and honing the set of management systems that promote an organization's desired outcomes (and uninstalling them when they are past the...

Words To Lead By

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 .

A Roadmap For Next Generation Of Leaders Driving Culture-First Change

The transformative success of everything today’s leaders are driving – including AI (Artificial Intelligence) – will be determined not by whether they are “good” or “bad,” but by whether their organization’s culture embraces them. Decades of failed efforts prove that successful change can’t be mandated. That’s what Phil Gilbert believes and professes. “Change is a product, not a mandate,” says Gilbert. “Transform your initiative into a desirable offering that teams choose to adopt rather than an edict they’re forced to follow. Your organization is the market, and every project team is a potential customer who must be convinced that your approach will solve their problems better than the status quo. This product-centered mindset creates voluntary adoption that spreads organically.” This proven approach to making transformations is something people run toward, not away from. You’ll learn how this happens in Gilbert’s new book, Irresistible Change: A Bluep...

Use These 13 Energizing Verbs To Make Your Communication More Impactful

Here is some great advice from the book, Anticipate, the Art of Leading by Looking Ahead , by Rob-Jan De Jong . Use these 13 energizing verbs more often when communicating: Discover (instead of See) Explore (instead of Discuss) Radiate (instead of Display) Uncover (instead of Show) Transform (instead of Change) Engage (instead of Involve) Mobilize (instead of Gather) Stretch (instead of Develop) Boost (instead of Increase) Propel (instead of Move) Deliver (instead of Give) Grasp (instead of Understand) Connect (instead of Join)

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog