Knowledge

Lead With Integrity

By Brandon W. Jones on May 2, 2013 4

When you are a leader, it is very important to lead with integrity. If you lead with integrity people will trust you. If you don’t lead with integrity, people will distrust you. To lead with integrity, you must be honest, true to your word, and trustworthy.

A little while back I was on a quest to learn about how to lead with integrity. I picked up a book called Leading with Integrity: Character Based Leadership by Alan Kolp and Peter Rea. The authors mentioned many great points on how to lead with integrity.

The authors make three points that you may not think of when you think of leading with integrity. They were globalization and technology, servant leadership and competence, and teaching character. Each of these sections is very relevant to understanding what it means to lead with integrity.

Globalization and Technology

In today’s world the use of technology and globalization is growing faster than ever before. Innovation continues to increase technology is most countries throughout the world. Companies are outsourcing more work to countries with less expensive labor. They are also building offshore warehouses to produce their goods. With the technology, they use telecommunication systems to conference call from one location to another across the globe. As the book points out, the number of overseas phone calls has dramatically increased over the last decade.

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Why Leaders Should Write Specialty Blogs

By Brandon W. Jones on February 28, 2013 10

The Impact Of Specialty Blogs

Have you heard about the impact of specialty blogs? Did you hear the story about the stay-at-home mom that became a millionaire? How did she do it? She did it by creating a specialty blog. She and her husband were struggling to make ends meet, so she started to blog about her situation. The purpose of her blog was to show everyone what she and her family were going through and how they were trying to save money, be more frugal, and overcome their situation.

As she wrote, she gained more and more followers. She gained credibility as a money saving expert as she saved money and became financially stable. Once she gained her expert status, major television networks had her to speak on their shows to teach people how to overcome their financial instability. They paid her big money for the speaking arrangements. From there, she started her own in-home business that focused on helping people gain financial stability.

I learned about this story through reading the book ME 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. Many people write specialty blogs and each person has the ability to start their own specialty blog. If you start a specialty blog and post regularly, you will gain a following and could be the next millionaire!

The Nitty Gritty Of Specialty Blogs

Okay, okay, I am not going to promise you any financial gain, but there are many benefits that come from specialty blogs. Just for starters, the list below has four benefits of specialty blogs. Starting your own specialty blog will help you do the following:

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Are Your Leadership Choices Building Or Tearing Down Walls?

By Brandon W. Jones on June 14, 2012 0

Today, I read a very interesting article about GM, GM’s Chief Labors to Get Rebuilt Car Maker Into Gear, by Sharon Terlep. She talked about the new challenges CEO Dan Ackerson has been facing as the new CEO of General Motors Corporation. After taking over as CEO, he traveled to the various locations within the company to get to know the operations of the company. He worked very hard to know how and why things operated the way they did.

Know Your People and Organization

As he went to the different areas of the company, he found that each area had their own competitive advantages and disadvantages compared to the other areas. Each area had their own trade secrets they were not willing to share. There was a high level of competition between areas.

The Silo Approach

Many of these areas had to work together in some form or another, but they acted like their own separate company. Rather than work together for the good of the company, they worked for the benefit of their specific department, group, or area.

That type of an environment led each group to outspend other areas of the company. Each group desired to have the best of everything to the point that they spent money on frivolous things. They all wanted “the best of everything” for their department. This high level of competition created walls within the company. Functional groups were not willing to work with other departments or compromise in any fashion. [Read more…] about Are Your Leadership Choices Building Or Tearing Down Walls?

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.

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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!

Leaders, Obtain And Keep The Right People: Part 3 of 3

By Brandon W. Jones on February 28, 2011 2

Once the right people are in place, leaders must do all they can to retain them. Many leaders and companies don’t have a good system in place to retain their employees. This issue is compounded when you throw in the fire happy leaders. It is possible for the fire happy leaders to hire and train good employees then fire them on a whim. A good employee retention system is a key to keep the right people that are qualified and trained employees.

For an employee retention system to succeed, it must discourage leaders from firing people without taking adequate measures to help them succeed. The following are two safeguards that must be in place for the success of employee retention systems:

The fire happy leaders must have disincentives for firing people and incentives for employee retention.
The employees should have performance incentives and retention programs.

Firing Disincentives and Incentives

Ultimately, fire happy leaders cost companies lots of money because each time a trained employee is lost, the company has spend money to train a new employee. With disincentives in place, fire happy leaders will slow down or stop firing people. The fire happy leaders that I am referring to are those that fire based on personality conflicts, differing opinions, etc.

Some ways to disincentivize firing are pay freezes, pay cuts, holds on promotions, or demotions. Although some of these disincentives seem strong, it is very important for leaders to keep the trained employees within the company. The disincentives will encourage leaders to get over their personality conflicts for fear of punishment.