Establishing A Good (and Mutually Beneficial) Business Relationship With Your Employees
From a leader’s point of view, there are three basic things that compose a functional relationship: Command, control, and communication. Those are the most basic aspects that leaders need to establish a basic link between themselves and their employees.
Guest post by Yvette Bethel
Your interconnective infrastructure is the framework that facilitates interpersonal and other work relationships. It is important to realize that it doesn’t only encompass interpersonal relationships, it also incorporates your communication channels, organizational structure, policies, procedures, and strategy. As a leader, it is important to be able to identify and facilitate your interconnective infrastructure because it is the glue that holds your team together, either facilitating unhealthy cultures or positive ones propelled by authentic, respectful interactions founded on skills that shape and sustain trust.
One of the interesting things I’ve found about life—all aspects of life—is that it keeps moving forward, it keeps changing. Every day brings something new, something different.
When you get past the fear that holds you back and find the courage to move forward, the work is not done. You must keep moving forward. To get where you want to go, you need to have the determination to do.
Guest post by Mirette Ghanem
If you are reading this, you’re already flexing your leadership muscle. Of all the ways you could be using this time, you were drawn to a headline on leadership and you stopped to focus on the topic.
You know for sure whether leadership ideas and practices work by how long they last. The new ideas we come up with today will take time to prove themselves—that’s the tricky part.
One of the great leaders of the past—whose teachings and ideas have held strong for more than 150 years—is Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. He was an uncharacteristic leader for his time, perhaps even more so for our time, and yet his principles and teachings on leadership have withstood the test of time.
“Leadership is not a license to do less, it’s a responsibility to do more.”
What makes leaders different from everyone else? How do they build trust with the people they serve? Why do they forego their own interests on behalf of those they lead?
These questions refer to true leaders. The type of leaders whose followers will march behind them no matter where they’re headed. The type of leaders who inspire feelings of safety and commitment. Continue reading
Like many of you I like to take time at the end of the year to review what transpired and evaluate how I did—and that includes my blog. One of the things I do is review my top posts to find out what’s working and why.
Here are my top five posts for 2014: Continue reading
One of the most important characteristics of leadership is integrity. Integrity means you are true to your word in all you do and people can trust you because you do what you say.
The word integrity has deep meaning and is often intermingled with words like honesty and truthfulness. It connotes a deep commitment to do the right thing for the right reason, regardless of the circumstances. People who live with integrity are incorruptible and incapable of breaking the trust of those who have confided in them. Every human is born with a conscience and therefore the ability to know right from wrong. Choosing the right, regardless of the consequences, is the hallmark of integrity.
In a recent Forbes article, Karl Moore and Chatham Sullivan discuss what integrity means and why it’s so important:
“We’ve entered a new era. Call it the age of imagination, ideation, conceptualization, creativity, innovation—take your pick. Creativity, mental flexibility, and collaboration have displaced one-dimensional intelligence and isolated determination as core ingredients of a competitive advantage.”
In his book OUT THINK: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes, author Shawn Hunter synthesizes a set of what he calls “truths in emerging innovative leadership practices” that help companies generate value in the form of innovative products and services. The volatility of the current economy—which he calls ‘marketquake’—demands that organizations become agile in order to survive.
In the book, Hunter explains a series of ten processes that comprise the ‘Out Think’ journey:
One of the great leaders and thinkers of our time is Clayton Christensen, ”a down-to-earth” alum of BYU, Oxford and Harvard. His book The Innovators Dilemma has impacted the business world perhaps more than any other book in recent history. He has expanded his research and applied his theories to other industries like health care, higher education and even governments and tax systems.
I found two recent articles about Clayton Christensen that have increased my understanding about leadership: The first is published in the BYU Magazine’s Spring 2013 edition. (As a BYU alum I get the magazine in the mail; it will be available online in a few months.) The second article is an interview in Wired magazine. In this interview author Jeff Howe asks Christensen questions about his career and sheds thought-provoking light on how he became so important to the business world.
So how do leaders make lasting change? According to Christensen, you keep nimble and respond to up-and-coming innovations at the bottom of the market. You make a concerted effort to not let your company become vulnerable to what Christensen coined as disruptive innovation.
What’s even more important to Christensen is the application of his theories to individual lives; making lasting change in your personal life. He recently wrote the book How Will You Measure Your Life in response to his experiences with former classmates and students. Rather than attempting to explain it I will point you to a TED video where Clayton describes it himself.
If you really want to make lasting change in your life, understand these principles. In the end, says Christensen: “God will measure my life by the individual people that I have blessed.” That’s how you make lasting change.
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The Product Management Perspective: Product managers operate in a very interesting position (in light of Clayton Christensen’s theories): they need to innovate and keep their products viable. However, the very things they do to innovate lead to The Innovator’s Dilemma if not watched and guarded closely. Take a careful look at Christensen’s writings and talks, and look for ways to apply them in your role as product manager.
Lead on Purpose 