Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

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Leadership Blessings Through Hard Times

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Have you ever gone through hard times and wondered if anything good would come from it?  Many times, especially as we go through hard times, it is easy to complain thinking you have done everything right so things should turn out how you envisioned them.  It is easy to think things should go your way because you put in the time and hard work.  In reality, if used properly, these are the times when you can experience the most growth.  The hard times will make you stronger if you use them properly.

Hard times and the blessings that follow

Use hard times to your advantage

So how do you use hard times to your advantage?  There are always lessons to be learned through challenges.  During the last five years the U.S. and many parts of the world have gone through very hard times economically.  Thousands of people lost their jobs and companies went out of business.  In addition, many people lost their homes.  Some people might ask, what good can come from this?  These challenging times have been very hard, scary, and real for many people. [Read more…] about Leadership Blessings Through Hard Times

How To Learn From Experience

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In many ways everyday leadership is just a big experiment.  Leaders do everything they can to do what they have to do in the “right” or most efficient way possible.  Sometimes they will be very successful and everything will go right, while other times everything will seem to go wrong.  No matter the outcome, you can always learn from experience.  You can also learn from experience of others.

Learn from experience

What to do to learn from experience

If you are anything like me, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you really know.  You probably also do all you can to learn from experience so you don’t repeat your past mistakes and you can mimic your past successes.  There is a lot you can do to learn from experience whether it is your own or from someone else.  If you want to learn from experience, however, it is very important to have an open mind.  To learn from  experience, I suggest four actions you can take.

1.  Reflect On Each Experience

After you go through an experience, reflect on what happened.  What was the expected outcome and what was the actual outcome?  As you reflect, identify what choices and actions led to successful and unsuccessful results.  From there, determine what principles were followed and how those principles can be used/adapted to solve future problems. [Read more…] about How To Learn From Experience

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.

[Read more…] about Find The Right Setting For Feedback – Part 2 of 2

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

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

Make the Performance Review a Positive Experience

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Each year most employers give their employees an annual performance review. One complaint I have with many leaders is that they save up all they negative feedback for the annual review. This is very inappropriate. The annual performance review should be a time of reflection on the past year, not a gripe session. The annual performance review is a time for leaders to do three things.

Give Constructive Criticism

It is important for leaders to point out strengths of their employees prior to giving any criticism. Once the strengths have been discussed, leaders can identify areas of weakness within their employees. Once the weakness has been discussed, the leader should give the employees suggestions on how to improve and overcome their weakness. If the leader does not give suggestions for improvement, the employee will feel less valued. [Read more…] about Make the Performance Review a Positive Experience