Tag: Leadership

Do You Really Need that Meeting?

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Do You Really Need that Meeting?Plan a Meeting Image

Try keeping a scorecard for just one week –

  • How many meetings produced a breakthrough idea?
  • How many meetings didn’t need to be held at all?
  • How many meetings taught you something you could have learned in less time elsewhere?
  • How many meetings were held and you weren’t quite sure why?
  • How many meetings produced absolutely no results?

Knowing how to assess if a meeting is needed enables you to save time, effort and money for your organization. It also, defines you as a leader who understands the importance of using other’s time in valuable ways.

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Developing Your “Gut Instincts”

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Developing Your “Gut Instincts”Trust Your Gut Image

How many times have you had a feeling in your “gut” that you were right about something or that something just wasn’t right? Did you follow it?

Intuition is sometimes called our “higher wisdom” or “intelligence of the heart”. It is knowledge or cognition gained without any rational, intellectual thought or effort.

Harvard business professor, Daniel Isenberg studied a group of leaders in major corporations for the use of intuition on the job. He spent days with them observing as they worked, interviewing them and having them perform various exercises designed to figure out what made them successful.

Isenberg discovered five different ways successful leaders use intuition:

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Are You Outnumbered? E-I-E-I-OH!

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Are You Outnumbered? E-I-E-I-OH!Introvert - Extrovert Image

Everyone has a natural preference for Extroversion and Introversion.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung recognized that people have a preferred mode in which they embrace the world. This mode, much like right or left handedness, is inborn and not something that we choose.

Extraverts and introverts differ in what they present to the world and how they recharge.

For extroverts, their natural energies, perceptions and decisions flow outward toward the world of people and things. They are stimulated by their surroundings.

Introverts have natural energies, perceptions and decisions flowing inward toward the world of thought and ideas. Internal processes stimulate the introvert.

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Cooling Hot Buttons

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Cooling Hot Buttonshot-button Image

Conflict pushes our emotions in many directions.

“Anger” is, after all, just one letter away from “Danger”. Leaders, who are in control and professional, often reflect on their responses before, during and after conflict.

The phrases below represent comments from coaching sessions in which people lost control and used destructive behaviors during conflict at work.

“I was so mad. I was seeing red.”
   “I couldn’t take it anymore and blew up.”
      “S/he really knows which buttons to push.”
         “I went over the edge with anger and just lost it.”

The Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) is a tool that gauges hot buttons, as well as, constructive and destructive responses to conflict.

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Constructive Feedback and Type

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Constructive Feedback and TypeTime for Feedback Image

As author, Andrew J. DuBrin, states it – “Feedback is information about past behavior, delivered in the present, which might influence future behavior.”

Providing constructive feedback about job performance is a basic responsibility of every leader. Feedback is necessary to help others develop, grow and correct their mistakes.

The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) can assist in really reaching an understanding and moving people forward in a constructive feedback coaching session.

Use the following suggestions for the type preferences below:

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Leading with Integrity

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Leading with IntegrityIntegrity Compass Image

“When you sacrifice your integrity, you erode your most precious leadership possession. People will forget and forgive any judgment error that you make, but integrity mistakes are forever.”

David Cottrell, author of Listen Up Leader – Pay Attention, Improve and Guide

The first question most people ask themselves is: “Do I trust my boss and the other members of management?”

Trust is a by-product of integrity. Leaders are asked to be honest, respectful, responsible and credible. Without integrity, leadership rings hollow.

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Transition Hurdles for Leaders

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Transition Hurdles for LeadersTransition Image

Building a career in leadership involves having critical abilities to adapt and flourish in new work environments.

In a study at the Harvard Business School General Business Program, leaders had an average of 16 years of business experience, had experienced 5.5 promotions, changed bosses an average of every 1.5 years, worked for 2.4 companies, and made 1.5 international moves.

In other words, change is a constant in the quest for higher level leadership.

In the article, The Eight Toughest Transitions for Leaders, Michael D. Watkins, outlines the types of career moves that most executives face.

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Understanding Your Approach to Conflict

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Understanding Your Approach to Conflict

  Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down Conflict Image

People make critical decisions and choices during conflict. Taking responsibility means acknowledging how you may have contributed through actions, words and behaviors.

The Conflict Dynamics Profile® is an instrument that provides people with a honest appraisal of constructive and destructive behaviors, as well as, conflict hot buttons. The CDP® has been developed based on the concept of conflict as “dynamic” – with a beginning, middle and end – an active process.

Some behaviors heighten the process and cause it to escalate and erupt; other behaviors can interrupt the process, reduce the conflict and transform it into a problem-solving mode.

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Lessons Learned from the Undercover Boss

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Lessons Learned from the Undercover Boss

  Undercover Boss Image

Do you know what your employees are thinking?

Do you have a pulse of what is going on in your organization?

You review employee surveys, conduct brown bag lunches, have your Human Resource Department facilitate focus groups, but how much do you really know?

This was the question that motivated Stephen Martin, a CEO in a medium sized civil engineering group in the U.K. to go undercover as an employee, to find out what was going on in the Clugston Group (Financial Times newspaper, June 9, 2009).

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Protecting Your Training Investment

Posted on by Jan Hovrud

Protecting Your Training Investment

  Knowledge Transfer Image

Ever wonder why your organization does training one month and the next month everyone is back to their old habits?

Transfer of learning (TOL) is an important aspect of training – getting participants to actually use the skills, knowledge and abilities that were presented during a training program. TOL needs to happen before, during and after training happens.

This safety net maximizes the learning and places accountability on the participant.

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