Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

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This Week’s Top Five Leadership Posts – 10/3/2012

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Over the past few months I have not posted about my top five weekly leadership posts. I have missed writing these posts because I really enjoyed writing them and I think that my readers enjoyed them as well. This week the posts I selected covered a wide range of topics ranging from the importance of humor in the workplace to succession planning for the success of your organization. Each of the posts discusses a different aspect of leadership that must be considered as you lead.

Become The Best Leader By Being Funny And Being Humiliated by Bhavin Gandhi

Over the years, I have learned a lot about leadership and management. And when I was analyzing my knowledge, I realized that there are only two very important characteristics of a good leader, which separates him/her from the crowd. In this blog, I will focus on these two characteristics, which can make you the best leader.

Be funny: By being funny, I don’t mean that you need to be a superstar at the break room discussions. What I mean is……..you need to have a humorous side of you to laugh on your mistakes. More…

Rare Wisdom from Citrix CEO Mark Templeton about Hiearchy and Respect by Bob Sutton

I confess that as an avid reader of The New York Times, I have been disappointed in recent years because they devote too much space to interviews with CEOs and other bosses. Notably, it seems to me that they run the same column twice every Sunday: Adam Bryant’s “The Corner Office” and another interview column called “The Boss.” I do love many of these interviews anyway, as The Times gets interesting people and their editing makes things better. And I am a big fan of Adam Bryant’s book, The Corner Office, as it did a great job of transcending the column. What bugs me, however, is that The Times devotes so much of the paper to interviews now, I suspect, because it is simply cheaper than producing hard-hitting investigative journalism. They do an occasional amazing in-depth story, but there is too much fluff and not enough tough for my tastes.

[Read more…] about This Week’s Top Five Leadership Posts – 10/3/2012

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

What Happens If You Scream As The Leader?

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In leadership, there are just as many methods of communication as there are leaders.  Have you ever worked for a boss that liked to scream at you or others that you worked with?  How did it make you feel?  Or, have you worked for a boss that spoke calmly, and/or softly with words penetrated your souls?  How did that leader make you feel? Each method of communication makes you feel a different way.

Today, I read the Wall Street Journal article titled, When The Boss Is A Screamer by Sue Shellenbarger.  The article explained that the leaders from the past yelled and screamed at their employees to get things done.  Yelling in the work place was a very common practice, but leadership is changing.  Today’s leader is much more calm cool and collective.

Why is today’s leader different?  In order to understand why today’s leader is different, you must understand the results from of being a screamer.  The article mentioned six things that happen to employees as a result of yelling.  Employees will:

  1. Have a decrease in their working memory which is your memory that allows you to store and use information from your memory.
  2. Bring less creativity to their jobs
  3. Become less competent in performing tasks
  4. Quit their jobs at higher rates
  5. Avoid resolving conflicts, allowing them to escalate
  6. Speed up their work on simple familiar tasks

If you have worked for a screamer before, you have probably experienced one of the feelings mentioned above.  I have worked for a screamer and each of the results holds true. [Read more…] about What Happens If You Scream As The Leader?

Finding Your Leadership Niche

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When you are in leadership, you can become the strongest leader when you find your leadership niche. There are a wide variety of areas where you can be a leader. You lead in business, sports, politics, education, non-profit organizations, etc. Each requires a different skill-set. Some leaders need to be kind and compassionate, while others need to be hard nosed and strict.Finding Your Leadership Niche

Finding Your Leadership Niche

If you are a compassionate person, you will probably find more success in an industry that allows you to be compassionate. At the same time, if you are a strong willed and hard nosed, you will do best in an environment where that type of leadership is required. Of all the leadership niches, you must pick a specific leadership niche that best applies your strengths.

Incorrect Leadership Niche

A couple of years ago I knew a leader that was a good leader, but not able to become a great leader in his current position.  Where he worked, he wasn’t able to achieve all of his goals because he didn’t have the support he needed.  He wasn’t given the freedom to make the decisions he needed to make.  I spoke to him a number of times, and he was always very frustrated because he wanted to make a number of changes to improve processes. However, every time he tried to make a change, he was shot down by one person or another.  [Read more…] about Finding Your Leadership Niche

This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts – 6/13/2012

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The calling/responsibility of leadership is an important responsibility.  You must take it seriously because what you do as a leader each day has a major impact on where you end up long term.  The posts below are great posts because they help you to understand how to be a better leader.

Great Leaders Develops Both Themselves And Those They Lead By Beth Miller

Congratulations! You’ve worked hard to be a leader in your company. But don’t think you can sit back and relax from now on because great leaders understand that they must always be developing themselves and their employees.

Leaders lead others, but sometimes they don’t realize that the best leaders never stop improving themselves; they are passionate about learning and teaching, and their passion spreads to those who work around them.

It has been said that leaders are discovered, but really they are developed. Success is an ongoing process of improvement and adjustments.

Brandon’s Thoughts
As Beth pointed out, leaders must focus on their own improvement on a regular basis.  They must also focus on the development of those they lead.  As they train those they lead, they improve their team and the skills of their group.  The training helps their team be more successful because it will increase the overall skills.  Many leaders have a fear that training their followers is bad because it will make their followers replace them as the leader.  In reality, the opposite is more often the truth; the leaders that train their followers to be successful end up being more successful themselves.  By helping others succeed, they help themselves to move up the ladder because people see them as effective leaders. [Read more…] about This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Posts – 6/13/2012

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?