Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

If you've flown Southwest Airlines you know they're tops in airline customer service, driven by a leadership style that creates a company-wide culture where all employees own that culture. According to SWA Chairman, President and CEO Gary Kelly, as reported in the company's in-flight magazine, "every company has a culture, whether that culture is supportive or stifling, active or passive, fun or discouraging." " One way we do culture differently is by making Southwest's culture everyone's responsibility. In fact, we ask everyone to 'own it ,'" says Kelly. Here are some of the ways that SWA keeps its winning culture in the forefront that you can also do to keep employees motivated and to drive great customer service: 1.  Form a corporate culture committee and a local culture committee that organizes low-cost employee events throughout the year. 2. Include a section related to culture on each employee's annual performance app...

Are you a leader contemplating starting a new business?  Or, has a budding entrepreneur turned to you because of your leadership skills to ask for your help?  Here are 11 questions you or that entrepreneur should ask before starting a business. Is there a true need for my product/service?  What is the competitive environment and how will my product/service be unique, different or better? Will my location (or accessibility online) be convenient and easy to get to for my customers?  Do I have adequate funding to support my business, particularly during the ramp-up period that could be a year or more? Do I have the stamina to start a new business and work hard even if it means months of extended work hours and perhaps even seven days a week? Will my family and social life withstand my commitment to my new business? Will the name of my business be easy to spell, suitable for print on online, and memorable? Am I a risk taker ? Am I humble enough t...

It takes: Trust Confidence Respect Support Appreciation  That is what it takes to make relationships what they need to be in order for everyone to benefit says Don Klein, CEO of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, as recently quoted in Associations Now magazine. In your leadership role are you working with your employees to ensure they are instilling trust, confidence and respect, and providing the proper amount of support and appreciation? Is there anything else that should be added to Don’s list?

I was recently asked, "What five most important traits must a leader have to be effective?"  I could reply fairly quickly, but I did take a moment to remember that when I asked a similar question in a LinkedIn group discussion, group members offered up nearly 100 different adjectives to describe an effective leader. But, for me, I contend the five most important traits are : Good communicator . That means effectively communicating timely and consistent messages during good and bad times. And, knowing how and when to be a good listener. Communicating is critical. Employees must hear from their leaders. And, hearing from their leaders in person versus e-mail and written memos is even more effective. Being a servant leader . Put your employees and your company first. A top manager who makes decisions that are self-serving will lack followers and will bring the company down. Adaptable . Today, more than ever, a leader needs to adapt. That means adapting to competi...

Fortunately, most of my career I’ve worked in effective corporate cultures. If I put together the best of each, here is what made those environments effective: •  Leaders led by example on a consistent basis and were willing to roll up their sleeves, particularly during tight deadlines or challenging times. •  Employees clearly understood how what they did made a difference and how their contributions made the organization either more profitable or more effective. •  The workforce included a blend of long-term employees with a rich company, product/service and customer history, employees who had been at the company for five to seven years, and then new hires with a fresh perspective and keen sense of new technologies and techniques. That blend worked best when the mix included virtually all A-players. •  Top managers had a clear, realistic and strategic vision for how the company would grow and compete in the marketplace. •  Employees were challeng...

Communications expert David Grossman of The Grossman Group has a new eBook that's free and available for download. Based primarily on input from users of LinkedIn who answered a question posted by David, the eBook talks about the greatest mistakes that a leader can make that should be avoided. Two of the most powerful parts of the eBook for me are these compelling statements : Rest assured that employees are talking among themselves, shaping understanding, and drawing their own conclusions, especially with the prevalence of social media, which has made the exchange of everything from business news to gossip easier and more common than ever.  Effective communication means that you need to be a part of this conversation --and not in a way that dominates or tires to silence, but in one that lets you listen, engage, and connect proactively. The greatest mistake is not making mistakes .  If you don't make mistakes you're not pushing hard enough; moving fast ...

Overland Park, KS employee engagement expert and author Leigh Branham is the founder of Keeping The People, Inc. and he recently identified disappointing findings in a report released by The Economist , titled " Re-engaging with engagement: Views from the boardroom on employee engagement ." Those disappointing findings called out by Branham were : 84% of survey respondents say that "disengaged employees" are one of the three biggest threats facing their business. Yet, only 12% report that their companies "regularly and often" confront staff with "continually low engagement." C-suite executives themselves admit that employee engagement is discussed "occasionally", "rarely," or "never" at board level in 43% of companies. More than one in five in the C-suite believe that employees are "much more engaged" than those in rival firms, compared with only 7% of respondents outside the C-suite. 47% of C-sui...