Leadership Done Right Blog

How Are You Transparent In Your Leadership?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 12, 2013 0

Is it possible to be transparent as a leader?

Recently, I had an experience where I worked with another leader to make a change. The change would affect all the people we lead, so it was important that we be transparent. We informed everyone that the change would happen and tried to fill them in on all the details.

We also explained that the change needed to happen for the progress of the organization and for the desired outcome. From there, we asked for everyone’s input and feedback prior to making the change. We continued to make this request over and over again for many months prior to making the change.

We made this request for several months and everyone told us they trusted us and the direction we were going. They gave us their vote of confidence numerous times and said they were okay with any changes that would come on the fly because they felt we had been transparent. This gave us confidence to move forward with our plan.

Should Leaders Be Transparent?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 11, 2013 4

This week the President of the United States, President Barack Obama, will give the State of the Union address. His goal is to outline his plans, expectations, and personal agenda for 2013. In an attempt to be transparent, he is expected to let the country know what he plans to do to address each of the major domestic issues facing the country. Some of those issues include immigration, gun control, and education. In addition, he is expected to address some of the international issues the U.S. faces like the war in Afghanistan and global climate change.

Many people throughout the country are anxiously waiting to see what he has to say because it will likely coincide with the federal budget for this year. After his speech, however, there will be a lag time before people will really know the specifics of the federal budget because President Obama has not finished his 2013 budget. He is not expected to send it to Congress until mid-March. (In years past, the President gave his State of the Union address at the same time as the budget was released.)

The Five B’s Of Leadership Organization

By Brandon W. Jones on February 7, 2013 4

In order to be a good leader it is very important to be organized. As a leader, this can also be quite a challenge because in most cases leaders have many responsibilities that they must constantly balance to be effective in what they do. It can be very easy to become very organized in your approach to one responsibility, while letting others gradually get less organized.

The Five B’s of Leadership Organization

The five B’s of organization will help you as a leader to focus your energy so that you can stay organized and maintain balance in your life.

1. Be organized In your communication.

As a leader, you must communicate with others regularly. That communication is done in many forms, e.g. public speaking, email, letters, meetings, etc. To be organized in your communication means that you have a consistent message that goes out to everyone. To be organized, you are also direct in the message that you convey.

Have you ever worked for someone that would tell you one thing in front of your coworkers and then something different in front of your boss or other departments? Isn’t that frustrating? A leader that is organized in their communication, maintains their integrity by keeping the same message on all fronts. When you, as a leader, are organized in your communication, you gain the trust and respect of those you lead and they are more willing to follow you. [Read more…] about The Five B’s Of Leadership Organization

10 Steps To Make Effective Change

By Brandon W. Jones on January 22, 2013 5

What Does It Take To Make Effective Change?

As a leader, effective change is probably a very common part of your vocabulary. “Improve this process to make work go more smoothly.” “Implement this new procedure to comply with the new regulation.” “Let’s adjust our focus to improve the profit margin.” “Improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.” The topic of creating effective change comes up on a regular basis and is disguised by many different words.

As a leader, it is very common to want to make sweeping changes and make them happen NOW, but it is not always possible. There tends to be resistance to change because it causes people to go out of their comfort zone. Effective change requires that people do something new that is unfamiliar or unknown. People many times are afraid that when the changes occur they won’t be able to perform as well as they do in their current position and it will put their jobs in jeopardy. They can also be afraid that change will eliminate the need for their position. These fears are very valid in many cases and cause a tremendous amount of anxiety when people hear the word change.

So what does it take to implement an effective change? Is it even possible? Yes it is possible to implement effective change! The steps below explain how it can be done.

1. Identify the problem or reason for change.

Before you can make any effective change, you must have a full understanding of what is currently happening. Why were the current practices chosen in the past and how were they effective? Also, why are they needing to be changed and how will the proposed change be an improvement?

You should know both the good and the bad of what is currently happening. Once you identify both, you should identify specifically what needs to be improved and why. The worst thing you can do is change something just for the sake of changing it.

If you don’t have a full understanding of the current process, you will probably have a very hard time betting the buy-in of others. On the other hand, when you have a full understanding of the existing process you will be able to explain very specifically why the existing process doesn’t work and why your changes will fix or improve it. [Read more…] about 10 Steps To Make Effective Change

Leadership Done Right Is Back On Track!

By Brandon W. Jones on January 1, 2013 0

Over the past four weeks, I took a little break from blogging on Leadership Done Right so I could catch up on some projects and review the direction of my life. I focused on some of my families needs with the holidays. I also got caught up on some things I was previously too busy to do.

Leadership Done Right Challenges

Overall, the last quarter of the year was very busy because of the rigorous pace of life at work. There wasn’t any earth shattering thing that happened and no major problems or life changes occurred, I just had to get caught up on some things that required that I take a small break.

That being said, I’M BACK!! For 2013, I plan to blog regularly just as I did in the past. My goal is to write new fresh posts that cause you to change your way of thinking. As in the past, I intend to identify leadership lessons that can be learned from the current news events, discuss the pros and cons of popular leadership trends in the blogosphere, and explain leadership techniques and qualities that will improve your leadership ability.

As you read each blog post, please share your thoughts. Also, please let me know if you have suggestions on topics that I should discuss. Thank you very much for your support and input as you read the posts!

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Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 2 of 2

By Brandon W. Jones on November 27, 2012 0

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.

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.

Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 1 of 2

By Brandon W. Jones on November 26, 2012 0

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.

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

The Collapse Of Nations – Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility

By Brandon W. Jones on November 15, 2012 1

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the fundamentals of leadership fiduciary responsibility. I addressed that post mostly towards business and corporate leaders and what fiduciary responsibility they have. As a leader, it is very important to take your fiduciary responsibility seriously because your organization will flourish or perish based on how you handle the money. As a fiduciary leader in a corporate environment, you make major choices on how to spend money and where to make strategic investments. In many cases, however, the money you spend is money from investors.

Additional Reasons To Have Fiduciary Responsibility

In addition to the business and corporate environment, there are many leaders in government (many times politicians or political leaders) that have a great fiduciary responsibility. They regularly make major financial decisions that shape where their nations go in the future. Sometimes one decision or a series of decisions over a short time frame can change the course of a nation for many years. [Read more…] about The Collapse Of Nations – Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility

Do You Take Your Leadership Fiduciary Responsibility Seriously?

By Brandon W. Jones on November 14, 2012 0

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.

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?

Make Your Choice Count

By Brandon W. Jones on November 6, 2012 0

As everyone knows, today is the day of the presidential election in the United States Of America. Everyone that is 18 years old or older has the opportunity to go out and vote. By voting, each person can make their choice known. They have their voice in what they want and don’t want in the government and in the policies for the future.

This ability vote is very powerful because it allows you to actively make a choice on what your future brings. By voting, you have to make a choice on what you do and don’t support. If you choose not to vote, you are making the choice that no matter the outcome, you accept the consequences by not taking a stance. When you vote, you make a choice beforehand on whether or not you are going to study the topics and become educated or just go with a guess based on a couple of advertisements you heard on the radio or saw on T.V.

Voting is a very important manifestation of your choice, however, there are many other aspects of your life where you make choices as well. As a matter of fact, everyday you have hundreds of choices. You must decide what you are going to wear, what you are going to eat, how fast you will drive to work, what route you will take, whether you will try for a new job or opportunity, etc. and the list goes on. Some of the choices you make each day are very inconsequential while others have major impacts on the direction you go for the future. [Read more…] about Make Your Choice Count