Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

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Leadership Qualities

Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 2 of 2

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This post on feedback is a continuation to yesterday’s post.

On a couple of occasions I took the opportunity after the meetings to have one-on-one meetings with each person that attended the meeting.  Prior to each one-on-one meeting, I sent out a list questions that I wanted to discuss with the person.  In those one-on-one meetings I would discuss some of the following questions:

  • Do you have questions lingering from the meeting? If so, what are they?
  • How are the changes effecting you personally?
  • What challenges have you seen with the changes?
  • How do you think the meeting was run?
  • What improvements could be made to run the meetings more efficiently?
  • How can I be a better leader for you so that all your questions are answered?
  • Is there anything that I am doing as your leader that you feel I could improve upon to better help you and the other team members?
Each of those questions sparked a different type of feedback.  Some of the questions were general relating to the work that we were doing while others were very specific to me as a leader.The Right Setting For Feedback - Part 2
 As I went through both the group and one-on-one meetings, it was very interesting to see the level of feedback I received. In the group setting a few individuals gave a lot of the feedback while the rest of the group would sit back and listen and not say much. Then in the one-on-one meetings, I got a much more in-depth level of feedback. In my situation each meeting was important and effective for different reasons. The group meetings allowed me to discuss the broad topics that were troubling the whole group, whereas the one-on-one meetings helped me to get feedback from the individual team members.

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Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 1 of 2

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A little while back, I wrote a post about feedback.  The post was titled Have You Discovered The Value Of Constructive Feedback? In that post, I mentioned different people from which you should request feedback.  All those people fell within the following four groups.

  • Your leaders
  • Your followers
  • Your co-leaders (leaders on your same level)
  • Your customers

Each group provides a different angle of feedback because they have different perspectives on how you act as a leader towards them.  Once you get feedback from one of the groups mentioned, it is very important to act on it so you can improve your leadership skills.Find The Right Setting For Feedback

How To Ask For Feedback

While that post addressed many aspects of the “Who?” behind feedback, it didn’t address the “How?” Knowing how to ask for feedback is just as important as knowing who to ask. In response to my previous post I was asked in a response comment, “Do you recommend a one-on-one discussion or is a team discussion setting as a more effective setting for getting feedback?” [Read more…] about Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 1 of 2

Do You Take Your Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility Seriously?

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Over the past five to ten years there have been many leaders that have squandered money from others in some fashion.  Sometimes those other people are investors, employees, stockholders, or stakeholders of some form or another.  Many times the leaders are entrusted with large sums of money, but they are careless when making decisions.  Other times, leaders just make risky investments without doing adequate research.  So why do leaders make these types of decisions?  There are probably many reasons, but they all stem from the fact that they don’t understand their fiduciary responsibility.Do You Take Your Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility Seriously?

What is a fiduciary responsibility?

Wikipedia explains, “A fiduciary (from Latin fiduciarius, meaning “(holding) in trust”; from fides, meaning “faith”, and fiducia, meaning “trust”) is a legal or ethical relationship of trust between two or more parties.  Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money for another person.  One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to the other one, who for example has funds entrusted to it for investment.”  As a leader, you have a fiduciary responsibility to those who have entrusted you with their money. [Read more…] about Do You Take Your Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility Seriously?

Practice Makes Perfect, Or Does It?

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When I was in high school I had a great wrestling coach that coached a lot of champions.  He was an excellent coach because he knew how to bring the best out of people.  My coach had a long history of doing well as a coach.  The teams he coached placed in the top four in the state nearly every year.  When I started wrestling my freshman year, I was brand new to wrestling.  I didn’t have any experience as a wrestler and about half the other wrestlers didn’t have experience either.  We were completely new and fresh to wrestling.

Because we were all new to wrestling, my coach had to start out by teaching us the basics.  Once he taught us what to do, he made us practice it over and over again.  We did repetition after repetition until we were completely warn out.  With each repetition we did, our coach watched us very closely.  When he saw us do something wrong, he would tell us to do it over again and do it the right way.  As he corrected us each time, he taught us a valuable lesson.  There is an old saying that, “Practice makes perfect,” but that is false.  If you practice the wrong thing over and over again, you will still do it wrong.  When you practice something over and over again, you make it into a habit.  You cement it into how you do things and it becomes second nature for you to do it again.  [Read more…] about Practice Makes Perfect, Or Does It?

Leadership in a Changing World – Adaptability or Compromise?

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This is a guest post by Debbie Nicol. She is the Managing Director of ‘business en motion’ and the Creator and Author of ’embers of the world’ change concept.  She is a 25-year HR professional.  She has provided consulting services internationally since 2006 when she founded ‘business en motion’ in Dubai. She has many areas of expertise, some of which include organization development
, change management, strategy and implementation, strategic think tanks, and executive coaching.

Twitter: @leadershipember
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbienicol
Website:  http://embersoftheworld.com/

When contemplating what it takes to make sure leadership is truly done right the first exploratory question to be asked may be ‘right for what’?  The reply that automatically flows for me is: right for facilitating service to all equally in a changing world.

What Does the Changing World Really Want?

The changing world cherishes alignment and cohesiveness.  Just as a healthy backbone holds us up effortlessly, gifts us with free-flowing movement and allows us to hold ourselves high, so too does aligned activity to a purpose. When it is absolutely clear that a personal or business activity will contribute in a connected way, serving to add value to all, success will flow.

In a recent executive think-tank session with a group of government employees from Africa, I was asked this question: When does adaptability become compromise? I reflected for some time before I replied.  As my perspective took shape, through the lens of the ’embers’ model of leadership, my reply, as always, was another question:  When our actions result in a move away from purpose or a vision of greater good, what can happen?

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Advance Your Qualifications To Become A Better Leader

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Within many industries there are different certifications, licenses or other qualifications that give you the right to practice or work within that profession. For most, if not all, of those qualifications there are exams you must take and pass. The exams are very difficult because they cover all materials within that specific discipline.

Professional Exams

In order to pass the exams, most people are required to study long hours to gain a full understanding of the material. Some of the disciplines that have these types of exams are engineering (Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam and Professional Engineering (PE) Exam), accounting (Certified Public Account (CPA) Exam), and finance (Certified Financial Adviser (CFA) Exam).  There are, however, many areas within these disciplines that people can work without passing the exam and getting the certification.

Within engineering there are many positions that you can hold without becoming a PE. The exams are so difficult that many engineers get into corporate America and don’t take the exams. They find a rewarding career without taking and passing the PE exam, but they may not meet their maximum personal potential. [Read more…] about Advance Your Qualifications To Become A Better Leader