Leadership Done Right Blog

Are You A Great Leader If Your Organization Fails?

By Brandon W. Jones on April 4, 2012 0

Are you a great leader if your organization fails to meet expectations? Or if you aren’t meeting your goals, are you a great leader?

Carmelo Anthony and The Knicks

Today, the Wall Street Journal article Anthony: The Biggest (Playoff) Loser talked about Carmelo Anthony and his poor playoff performance. Carmelo Anthony traded to the New York Knicks NBA basketball team to bring a championship to New York.

The article states, “But considering the way Anthony’s teams have performed in the postseason, the Knicks would be lucky to even win a game.” It then explained that Anthony has played 50 career playoff games and has a record of 16-34. His winning percentage of .320 is “the worst of any player who has appeared in that many postseason games since 1991-92.” [Read more…] about Are You A Great Leader If Your Organization Fails?

Maintain Employee Morale Through Consistency

By Brandon W. Jones on March 26, 2012 2

Have you seen companies that struggle where the CEO still gets a huge bonus? What does that do to employee morale? Is it fair for the leader to get a bonus when the company is struggling? Think about what you do as the leader and how that effects employee morale.

Do you take all the credit for the work of your employees? Do you give yourself the pay increase when your employees do all the work? When you determine how you compensate your employees and yourself, pay close attention to how your employees and outsiders will perceive your actions.

CEO’s During the Recession

There were a number of companies during the first few years of the recession where the CEO’s and other top management received huge bonuses while their employees suffered, and at times were even laid off. This treatment had a major negative impact on the employee morale at those companies. Employees felt their leaders didn’t care about them. They also felt the leader was in it to get as much money as possible without concern for their employees or the company.

Handle Leadership Adversity With Ease

By Brandon W. Jones on March 9, 2012 2

As a leader, you will always face adversity. You will see it from your employees, coworkers, and even from people outside your organization. The real question is, “how will you handle it?” Will you run and hide, find a way around it, or face it head on? As the leader, you must be confident when you encounter adversity because everyone is watching. If you falter or show insecurity, people will lose trust and confidence in you as the leader.

Prepare for Adversity

So how do you prepare for adversity to handle it with ease? When I was in junior high and high school, I was always taught to plan how you will respond in a given situation before it ever occurs. If you plan out the scenario and determine how you will act, the decision will be a lot easier in the moment of adversity. [Read more…] about Handle Leadership Adversity With Ease

Go Wide Or Go Deep

By Brandon W. Jones on March 8, 2012 1

In today’s economic climate there are leaders that have very job specific knowledge, while there are other leaders that have a good overview of the company/organization but are great leaders. Each of these types of leaders has their own areas of expertise. The question is, “Which is more important to have to be successful?”

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an article about GE titled, The New GE Way: Go Deep, Not Wide by Kate Linebaugh. The article explained that new approach that GE is taking with their leadership.

Go Wide

In the past GE had all of their high ranking leaders were to go wide. They would go from one department/location in the company to another on a regular basis. The rotations occurred every few years.

This approach allowed GE to develop their leaders with a broad range of experience. They had experience in many areas of the company, but they didn’t have really specific knowledge in any particular department of the company. Each area of the company had their experts, but the leaders had general knowledge.

[Read more…] about Go Wide Or Go Deep

This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts

By Brandon W. Jones on March 7, 2012 3

Each week I write a post about the top five leadership posts I find because each blogger has their own niche. In the leadership world there are many very successful bloggers that blog on a daily or weekly basis. They have developed a prominence in their particular area of expertise.

I write my own blog about leadership, in addition to following blogs from others about leadership. Since I review leadership blogs on a weekly basis, I decided to highlight five leadership blog posts that discuss relevant leadership topics. Each of the bloggers is an independent blogger that doesn’t represent a company or other organization.

The Difference Between Management And Leadership by Bret L. Simmons

In the new chapter to the paperback edition of his book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, Bob Sutton asserts that there is a difference between management and leadership, but focusing on it is dangerous (p, 263). He concurs as I do with Warren Bennis that “managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” Bob thinks this distinction is accurate; however, focusing on it is dangerous.

Brandon’s Thoughts
This is a great blog that explains some of the differences between managers and leaders. Leaders need to look at the big picture of the organization and identify the direction they want the organization to go, while at the same time maintaining humility and the ability to do the important core roles and responsibilities of the company in their day to day roles. Leaders must also pursue education through all facets of their career no matter what their current responsibilities are. [Read more…] about This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts

Leaders, Know Your People

By Brandon W. Jones on March 6, 2012 2

Do you walk in every morning and go straight to your office? Once you get to your office, do you focus on responding to all your emails? Then you run from one meeting to the next and before you know it your day is over. Does this happen day after day, month after month? While you were in this routine, did you talk to your employees? Did you ask them how they were doing?

There are two prominent types of leaders: the work focused leader and the employee focused leader.

Work Focused Leaders

The work focused leaders stay to themselves and only do their job. They don’t make time for their employees because their work is “FAR MORE IMPORTANT”, or so they think. They are full of reasons/excuses as to why they can’t help their employees. They are great at deflecting their people’s concerns.

These types of leaders focus solely on their projects and success. They are also quick to anger when others ask them questions they don’t like. I am sure you know the type of leader I am talking about.

Use The Bell Curve To Your Advantage In Leadership

By Brandon W. Jones on March 3, 2012 0

The bell curve is a good indicator of where to expect performance from your employees. The bell curve is the normal curve used to show the average and standard deviation of a set of data points. With the bell curve, 95.4% of the data falls within two standard deviations.

Employee Performance – Bell Curve

When it comes to employee performance, how does the bell curve apply? Employee performance within a particular system should fall within the bell curve. Sometimes employees will perform a little above average while other times employees will perform a little below average, but their overall performance should all fall under the curve.

Learning from Outliers

The real learning comes from the outliers. When people underperform or overperform significantly, there is a factor that led to their performance. Sometimes they lack the proper training, while other times they may not understand the training they received. [Read more…] about Use The Bell Curve To Your Advantage In Leadership

What Do You Do Every Four Years?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 29, 2012 0

Since February 29th only comes around every four years, I decided to do a little different type of post. I researched some things that happened on this unique day.

The following things happened on February 29th:

1504 – Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians
1796 – Jay’s Treaty proclaimed, settles some differences with England
1848 – Neufchatel declares independence of Switzerland
1880 – Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy completed
1892 – Britian & US sign treaty on seal hunting in Bering Sea
[Read more…] about What Do You Do Every Four Years?

Why Engineers Are Good Leaders

By Brandon W. Jones on February 23, 2012 2

There are leaders that come from all backgrounds. Some have no college degree while others have doctorate degrees. At the same time, leaders come from different areas of study. Some have studied business while others have studied engineering.

In addition to engineering and business, there are many other fields of study that also produce strong leaders. There is no specific template for a good leader since they come in all shapes and sizes with all types of backgrounds. There are, however, backgrounds that tend to produce more leaders than others. Engineering happens to be one of those backgrounds.

So why are does engineering produce good leaders?

When you think of engineers, you may think of the technical guru that sits behind the computer all day working out solutions to advanced equations. [Read more…] about Why Engineers Are Good Leaders

Leaders, Stay Informed: Knowledge = Power!

By Brandon W. Jones on February 20, 2012 1

The old saying, “Knowledge = Power” is more true now than ever. In today’s economy, leaders everywhere must know what is happening in their industry and the economy as a whole. They must be up to date on trends and major changes coming. If leadership fails to stay on top of the trends, they can lose speed with their competition and possibly even their relevance.

Over the past few years, several companies have lost their relevancy because they failed to follow the trends of their industry and the economy. They lost pace with their competitors and either went of business or changed ownership.

There are also a few companies that have fallen into this trap but have not gone out of business yet, but they are struggling to survive. Some of the companies that fell into this trap are Blockbuster Video, Kodak, Circuit City, Mervyns, and Borders Books. I will explain the downfall of just two:

Blockbuster Video

Blockbuster Video has done a poor job of keeping up with the trends. As a result, they are struggling to survive and have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. They were very popular for many years, but failed to keep pace with the competition. While their competition began renting DVDs from vending machines and allowing movie rentals directly to your TV and computer, Blockbuster maintained their brick and morter stores. Blockbuster’s video rental stores required high overhead costs to keep each location functioning with their personnel. [Read more…] about Leaders, Stay Informed: Knowledge = Power!