Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

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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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Reflecting On Your Leadership Style – Corporate Embers Book Review

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Recently, I read a book called Corporate Embers by Debbie Nicol.  This book explains a variety of scenarios that happen in a corporate environment.  Each chapter of the book explained situations that occurred and then went on to ask a question or make a statement about a lesson that can be learned from the scenario.  In many of the scenarios mentioned, the book focused on the leader and how they responded or failed to respond.  By taking this approach, Debbie makes you think about how you act and respond as a leader.

Debbie discussed a variety of lessons that can be learned as you make leadership choices.  Through the scenarios she explained the importance of communication, the leader’s example, building a team work environment, engaging your employees, addressing your customers’ needs, having cultural sensitivity, and many other topics.  As I read her examples and the lessons learned, I could envision similar situations I’ve experienced as a follower and as a leader.

Corporate Embers provoked me to think about how I act as a leader.  As I read, I thought a lot about the following three questions.

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Why Don’t People Change?

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Isaac Newton was able to come up with some incredible advancements in the world of mathematics and science during his day.  Some of those advancements were:

  • Newton’s Three Laws of Motion
  • The development of the infinitesimal calculus
  • The discovery of refraction of light
  • Newton’s Laws of Universal Gravitation

Do you think Newton came up with all these discoveries on his own?  Did he have any information or knowledge to start from?  Newton was quoted as saying,

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

Standing on the Shoulders Of Giants

As a leader in math and science, Newton understood the importance of learning from others.  He took the knowledge he received from others and improved on it to make things better.  He constantly studied the practices of previous scientists and mathematicians so he could come up with new discoveries. [Read more…] about Why Don’t People Change?

How To Make It Through The Hard Times By Having A Vision

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Hitachi, the Japanese electronics giant, has been around for 102 years.  Recently they went through one of their worst periods in company history.  During the four year period from 2006 to 2010, Hitachi went through a company depression where the total losses equaled $12.4 billion.  The losses were the worst in company history.  The following two years they posted record profits.  In 2011 alone, they posted a net profit of $4.35 billion.

So why did they go from having record losses to record profits? What happened to make them profitable?  In April 2010, Hiroaki Nakanishi took over as the president of Hitachi.  When he took over, he had been in the company for many years which gave him a lot of experience, but he didn’t adopt the previous leadership culture that led to the problems.  With all his experience, he hadn’t allowed himself to grow into the same mold as all the past executives.  He had a completely different thought process than all the previous leaders.  The article Hitachi President Prods Turnaround in the Wall Street Journal by Daisuke Wakabayashi states:

Hitachi under Mr. Nakanishi has broken away from a plodding, risk-averse style of management, spinning off at breakneck pace its consumer-related operations in mobile phones, computer parts and flat-panel TVs to concentrate on selling big-ticket—and more profitable—power plants, rail lines and water treatment facilities.

While other Japanese electronics firms continue to suffer from losses in consumer products and the punishing impact of the strong yen, Hitachi—Japan’s largest electronics manufacturer—has posted a second year of record profits

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This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts – 5/9/2012

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This week’s top five leadership posts will help motivate you to be a better leader.  The leadership posts have a lot of good content that you can use to improve your leadership abilities.  The topics of this week’s posts are learning from mistakes, living out your dreams, obstacles that get in the way of change, the importance of thanking your team, and accomplishing your goals.  I hope you enjoy!

The Top 5 Mistakes Leaders Make by Beth Armknecht Miller

Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of leaders many who have displayed specific leadership shortfalls, that when improved, have had a positive impact on the effectiveness and profitability of the organization. Both new and experienced manager/leaders can make these top five mistakes; which one is your Achilles heel? And what is your plan to improve?

  1. Focusing on the urgent and not the important
  2. Lack of consistent communication
  3. Ineffective feedback
  4. Failing to define clear goals
  5. Misunderstanding motivation

Brandon’s Thoughts
I really like the points that Beth made.  It is very important to not fall prey to any of these pitfalls.  As a leader, it is so important to regularly evaluate your performance and identify what works well and what does not.  As you do that, you will avoid the mistakes other people had to painstakingly go through. [Read more…] about This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts – 5/9/2012

Go Wide Or Go Deep

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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?”

Go Wide Or Go Deep

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.

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