Of the 35+ leadership theories in current circulation, transformational leadership is the one nearest and dearest to my heart due to its focus on leadership ethics. But transformational leadership is also the most misunderstood theory, because many fail to realize that it’s not just about having a charismatic leader or an altruistic vision statement.
Category Archives: Executive Coaching
The Three Mindfulness Adjustments
As a practitioner of mindfulness meditation for 46 years, and a teacher of it for 25, I’ve followed the rise of the mindfulness movement over past two decades with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s been refreshing to see something I so value getting some airtime. On the other hand, its popularization, a.k.a. McMindfulness, has trivialized the practice beyond recognition, depicting it as a faddish skill you can pick up over a weekend. Mindfulness isn’t a new way to think or an attitude to adopt. It’s a practice, a way of being, diligently cultivated over time. It saddens me to see so many apostles of mindfulness, who clearly don’t practice it themselves, monetizing it.
Read MoreIs Leadership Different from Management?
The study of leadership is ancient, as old as Greek philosophy and the earliest Hindu, Daoist, and Confucian scriptures. In contrast, the study of management is new, beginning shortly after the advent of the industrial revolution. But ever since, the study of management has proliferated like wildfire, eclipsing the study of leadership by orders of magnitude in frequency and reach. Naturally this raises the question as to whether the subjects are substantively different rather than different words for the same thing.
Read MoreThe Four-V Model of Ethical Leadership
When it comes to leadership development models, one thing’s for sure: there’s no shortage. We have the great man, behavioral, situational, transactional, transformational, transforming, diamond, authentic, principled, adaptive, directive, supportive, group-centered, team-based, participative, servant and, let us never forget—the one-minute!
Many of these models broach the subject of ethics in leadership.1,2,3 Usually it’s relegated to a subsection of the related book or article, sometimes a chapter. The Four-V Model of Ethical Leadership is different in this regard. Ethics is not an aspect of the model. It’s the whole enchilada, the model’s ends and its means. According to the Four-V model, ethics is the sine qua non of leadership, and an unethical leader is a contradiction in terms.
Read MoreThe Importance of Teams Today
As many organizational cultures are becoming less hierarchical and bureaucratic, in keeping with the knowledge and information age, the need for teams keeps growing. This means that the capacity of an organization to build and utilize teams can provide a major competitive advantage. This is why real teams may be the best tool modern organizations have for upping performance. More than any other organizational structure, effective teams offer the flexibility and power to respond quickly to change.
Read MoreCharacteristics of Effective Groups
The greatest truism about groups is that every group is unique. It’s only natural then for group processes, structure, and culture to vary from group to group as a function of the group’s tasks, stage of development, and membership. That said, there are several barometers of group effectiveness that seem to apply universally, and that correlate with group performance.
Read MoreThe Value of Group Development to Organizations
Groups aren’t the answer to every kind of work. In fact, there are many tasks at which one person can outperform a group, for instance, where talent or experience is the critical performance factor. Who ever heard of group writing a novel, for example?
But groups can be particularly good at combining talents and providing creative solutions to unfamiliar problems. Whenever there is no established approach or solution to a task, a well-developed group’s wider range of knowledge, skills, and behaviors provides a distinct advantage over individuals working separately.
Read MoreStrategic Change Management Principles to Consider
Some of our clients have found it beneficial to approach strategic change as a process guided by proven behavioral principles rather than fancy or faddish models. These principles aren’t merely pet theories of ours. Rather, they derive from research in management best practices and social psychology, and have proven valid in our practice and in the experience of other management and organizational consultants.
Read MoreA Brief History of Group Dynamics
The study of small group behavior is a relatively modern development. It’s a sub-discipline of social psychology, which itself only gained recognition as a field distinct from sociology or psychology in the early 20th century.
Read MoreViable Strategic Planning Models
The terms strategy development and strategic planning mean different things to different people. Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of models for developing business and organizational strategies. The basic thrust and purpose of strategy is even conceptualized in different ways. For instance, strategy has been framed as:
Read MoreWilliam Dyer’s Characteristics of Effective Teams
When he was dean of Brigham Young University’s Graduate School of Management in the early 1980s, William Dyer wrote the pioneering text on team building, entitled appropriately enough Team Building. The book is now in its fifth edition. From the beginning, Dyer cautioned against using teams for anything but team-oriented work. He also was wary of trying to implement team building if an organization’s leadership was halfhearted or skeptical about committing the time and resources needed to do it right.
Read MoreTuckman’s Four Stages of A Group
Although Bruce W. Tuckman (1938-2016) was best known for his article “Developmental sequence in small groups,” published in 1965, his areas of academic expertise were educational research and educational psychology. Still, of all the models of group development ever proposed, Tuckman’s forming-storming-norming-performing remains the one most often referenced.
Read MoreDo Mission, Vision, and Values Statements Matter?
Many strategic planning processes begin with the planning team creating mission, vision, and values statements. The theory behind such efforts is that defining a shared purpose and long-term organizational objectives is vital to the planning process and to implementing the strategy.
By the same token, some strategy specialists question the need for putting mission, vision, or values statements in writing at all. One of their main objections is that a great many of the statements that result sound generic and aren’t truly actionable. Another complaint is that people often mistake vision statements for mission statements and end up creating more confusion than clarity.
Characteristics of Good Strategic Plans
Dwight Eisenhower once said, “I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” It was a great way to say that effective strategies are adaptable by nature, and that rigid lists of instructions won’t last long.
That said, a well-conceived and written strategic plan could be a helpful guide for the rollout of programs, policies, and processes—if it achieves some basic things. Note that most of these characteristics have less to do with a plans’ particular format and more to do with its practicality and clarity. To these ends, good strategic plans share the following characteristics, according to planning specialists.
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What Team Building Is NOT
You don’t have to look far to find people who are skeptical, or even cynical, about team building. The irony is, when you ask them why, you soon discover they never participated in true team building at all.
Here’s why. According to organizational surveys, 78% of so-called team building efforts within companies who reported having tried it consisted of one-time events. The surveys also showed that department heads or managers with little or no training or expertise in developing teams typically led these events.
Read MoreIs Executive Coaching Right For Your Organization?
Executive and leadership coaching aren’t the right change methods for every organization. Ultimately, the organizational culture is a primary determinant of whether or not a coaching engagement can prove effective. To the extent that the following statements describe your workplace, executive coaching has a great chance of improving an executive’s performance and effectiveness. Conversely, if many of these statements don’t ring true, your organization might want to rethink using coaching as an human resources development strategy at all.
What is Executive Coaching?
According to the Executive Coaching Forum, executive coaching is an experiential and individualized leader development process that builds a leader’s capability to achieve short- and long-term organizational goals. It is conducted through one-on-one interactions, driven by data from multiple perspectives, and based on mutual trust and respect. The overriding objective is for the organization, executive, and executive coach to team up in order to maximize results.
Read MoreSelecting the Right Executive Coach
Choosing a coach who is a good fit for an executive, as well as for his or her organization, can be tricky. It raises questions as to which selection criteria are relevant? As you evaluate prospective coaches, here are a few things to possibly consider:
Read MoreAn Overview of Strategic Change Management
“All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they’re getting . . .”
It’s one of the old-saws of organizational consulting. But consultants are not alone in thinking it. Systems theorists have been saying the same thing in different words since the beginning of the 20th century.
Read MoreWhat is Group Dynamics?
Every time you’re in a meeting, whether with one other person or twenty, you’re in a group. Task groups, work groups, departments, committees—all kinds of groups dominate organizational life. In fact, they’re every organization’s basic operating unit. Yet, how many people complain that groups and meetings are the least productive and rewarding parts of their job? As much as we work in groups, it’s sad that their potential often goes unrealized. This is where the social science of group dynamics comes in.
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