12 Core Questions About Effective Leadership

Here are a helpful set of questions about effective leadership everyone should ask themselves and also ask about those who serve with them.

In the book “First, Break all the Rules”, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, they list 12 core questions the Gallup organization discovered that when asked, give organizations the information they need to attract, focus on, and keep the most talented employees. I’ve included them here as a helpful set of questions about effective leadership everyone should ask themselves and ask about those who serve with them.

12 core questions about effective leadership

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my organization make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Questions have a way of making us think deeply.

What questions would you add to this list?

Inspiration from Top Leaders

You may have the best materials, the newest innovations, the most creative product --but those resources are meaningless without the core of your business: your employees. Poorly motivated and uninspired people can bring down even the most amazing organization.

If empowering your employees isn't a top priority, it should be. Here's some inspiration from top business leaders:

1. "My job as a leader is to make sure that everybody in the company has great opportunities and they feel they are having meaningful impact to the good of society." -- Larry Page, Google

2. "It's not the tools you have faith in. Tools are just tools -- they work or they don't work. It's the people you have faith in or not." --Steve Jobs

3. "In technology it's about the people: getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate." --Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

4. "You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company culture and propel you forward." --KathrynMinshew, The Muse

5. "To be the best place to buy you must be the best place to work. Treat your employees the way you want your customers to be treated, maybe even better." --Shep Hyken, customer service expert

6. "The organization is, above all, social. It is people." --Peter Drucker

7. "Businesses often forget about the culture and ultimately they suffer for it, because they cannot deliver good service from unhappy employees." --Tony Hsieh, Zappos

8. "Start with why customers will never love a company until the employees love it first." --Simon Sinek

9. "People want guidance, not rhetoric; they need to know what the plan of action is and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it." --Howard Schultz, Starbucks

10. "No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it." --Jack Welch, General Electric

11. "Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own." --Tony Hsieh, Zappos

12. "First get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, and then they can figure out where to drive it." --Jim Collins,Good to Great

13. "Hire for attitude and train for skills." -- Tom Peters

14. "If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarves, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants." --David Oglivy

15. "Human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled. They are four-dimensional: body, mind, heart, and spirit." --Stephen Covey

16. "We believe that when the right talent meets the right opportunity in a company with the right philosophy, amazing transformation can happen." --Reid Hoffman

17. "You cannot have faith in people unless you take action to improve and develop them." --SumantraGhoshal

18. "The inventory, the value of your company, walks out the door every evening." --Bill Gates

19. "The task of leadership is not to put passion into people, but to inspire and elicit it -- for the passion is there already." --Ty Howard

20. "You don't build a business, you build people, then people build the business." --Zig Ziglar

21. "The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." --Theodore Roosevelt

22. "Virtually every company will be going out and empowering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes, thinking through how their business can change, how their project management, their customer feedback, their planning cycles can be quite different than they ever were before." --Bill Gates

23. "Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself." --Gloria Steinem

24. "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." --General George S. Patton.

25. "An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success." --Stephen Covey

Inspired by one of these quotes? 

Talk about it with your peers,

brainstorm what it means 

in terms of your organization, 

and 

Get Going!

FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF WEAK LEADERS

Sometimes you learn from positive role models. Often you learn from negative ones. This is one of the reasons I love to read history—you inevitably get both.

After watching Steven Spielberg’s movie Lincoln (click on preview below), 

I decided to review Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  I had read this book a few years ago. It is a page-turning account of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and his political genius.

At the beginning of Lincoln’s first term, he appointed each of his former Republican rivals—those who had run against him for his party’s nomination—to cabinet posts. The narrative demonstrates his amazing ability to tap into a broad array of perspectives and create alignment among those who often disagreed violently with one another.

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s leadership was not perfect. He occasionally selected men for public service who were unworthy of his trust. One such individual was General George B. McClellan, commander of the “Army of the Potomac” and, eventually, first general-in-chief of the Union Army.

General McClellan had significant character flaws that I believe serve as warning signs to anyone in leadership. Ultimately, these cost him dearly: He lost Lincoln’s confidence, his job, and a run for the White House (against Lincoln). Worse, they prolonged the Civil War and cost the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

Here are the five flaws I jotted down as I read the book:

1. Hesitating to take definitive action. McClellan was constantly preparing. According to him, the Army was never quite ready. The troops just needed a little more training. In his procrastination, he refused to engage the enemy, even when he clearly had the advantage. He could just not bring himself to launch an attack. When Lincoln finally relieved him of his duties, he famously said, “If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time.”
2. Complaining about a lack of resources. He constantly complained about the lack of available resources. He didn’t have enough men. His men weren’t paid enough. They didn’t have enough heavy artillery. And on and on he went. The truth is that, as a leader, you never have enough resources. You could always use more of one thing or another. But the successful leaders figure out how to get the job done with the resources they have.
3. Refusing to take responsibility. McClellan blamed everyone else for his mistakes and for his refusal to act. He even blamed the President. Every time he suffered a defeat or a setback, someone or something was to blame. He was a master finger-pointer. Great leaders don’t do this. They are accountable for the results and accept full responsibility for the outcomes.
4. Abusing the privileges of leadership. While his troops were struggling in almost unbearable conditions, McClellan lived in near-royal splendor. He spent almost every evening entertaining guests with elaborate dinners and parties. He insisted on the best clothes and accommodations. His lifestyle stood in distinct contrast to General Ulysses S. Grant, his eventual successor, who often traveled with only a toothbrush.
5. Engaging in acts of insubordination. McClellan openly and continually criticized the President, his boss. He was passive-aggressive. Even when Lincoln gave him a direct order, he found a way to avoid obeying it. In his arrogance, he always knew better than the President and had a ready excuse to rationalize his lack of follow-through.

President Lincoln had the patience of Job. He gave General McClellan numerous opportunities to correct his behavior and redeem himself. But in the end, McClellan either could not or would not do so. He left the President no choice but to relieve him of his duties.

These same character flaws afflict many leaders today. The best safeguard is self-awareness.

By the way, you might want to read this post with your team and then discuss it. Even better, read the book and discuss it.

Question: Do you see any of these flaws in your own leadership? What can you do to correct them now—while you still have time?

                Michael Hyatt / http://michaelhyatt.com/5-characteristics-of-weak-leaders.html

Survival Run

I have shown this video hundreds of times to groups. The YouTube link gives you the first three minutes of a 12 minute video, but that is enough to give you the idea of the situation.

This masterfully executed film features blind marathon runner, Harry Cordellos, who runs the difficult Dipsea course through the majestic country near San Francisco guided only by the voice and arm of his sighted partner. Beautifully photographed, Survival Run is an inspiring study of courage, trust and determination. It is an unforgettable study of a highly motivated team that overcomes seemingly insurmountable limitations and risks to achieve their goal.

It is a great exercise to spend a little time thinking of yourself as each of these people and the challenges we get into throughout our lives.

1. In what ways are we like the sighted man? Who are we assisting? In what way do we give directions? Do we seek feedback? Do we take things for granted?

2. In what ways are we like the blind man? What assumptions about our sighted guide are we making? Are those assumptions true? Have we asked the necessary questions? Have we talked about trust? Is there danger ahead? In what ways do we communicate?

The video is also a great tool for teams. How do teams depend on each other?

Also for married couples. In what ways are we each of the two characters?

I have a good friend who is a school teacher and each year for many years she has borrowed the video to show her class and have a very rich discussion about some of the questions above.

I challenge you to find someone to watch the video with you and talk about your communication with others.

There are also many spiritual connections you can make.

BTW: You cannot get this from Netflix. It is a commercial training video and will cost you $250, but you can get it at a significant discount for educational purposes or home use. For more information, click HERE.

Mailing Address:
Pyramid Media
3200 Airport Ave Ste 19
Santa Monica CA 90405
email: sales@pyramidmedia.com
phone: 800-421-2304 or 310-398-6149