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What Makes Some Teams Great…
In our experience, one important thing differentiates
high performing teams from teams that do not perform as well.
Very simply, members of great teams share a
clear sense of the future. Some might call this a vision - and a
vision can be powerful - but that term sometimes feels a little
fuzzy. Here's another way to look at it. We think there are three
elements  that
support the creation of a shared perception of the future. They
are intention, principles and goals.
A statement of intention - sometimes called
core purpose - can be easily developed by a group who are asked
to arrive at a consensus around their answers to the question: why
we are in business? The second key element in creating a shared
sense of the future are principles or, the values that the group
agree are non-negotiable. The last thing needed to create a shared
sense of the future are clear goals or milestones.
If you think of a ship. Purpose is it's direction,
or the course it is steering. Principles are like the channel buoys
outside of which the ship doesn't travel and goals are the distance
markers along the channel. When a group of people are clear about
their intention or purpose, their values and their goals, they have
a foundation for exemplary performance. <by
Peter Buchanan, Management-Transitions Ltd.>
Rules for Leaders
According to Tom Peters, if you think the past five
years were nuts, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
It's only going to get weirder, tougher, and
more turbulent. Which means that leadership will be more important
than ever -- and more confusing.For the next five years, it's business
as a high-stakes, high-risk, high-profile event that is filled with
uncertainty and ambiguity. And clear-cut performance outcomes matter
more than ever before.
Which means that we're going to see leadership
emerge as the most important element of business -- the attribute
that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. And that means
that over the next five years, we're going to have to reckon with
a new, unorthodox, untested, maybe just plain freaked-out list of
leadership qualities. Peters provides you his 50 ways of being a
leader in freaked-out times. <click
here for the full story...>
The Leader of the Future
It's hard to imagine discussing "the leader
of the future" without having a discussion with Ronald Heifetz --
one of the world's leading authorities on leadership.
Heifetz, 48, director of the Leadership Education
Project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government,
is a scholar, a teacher, and a consultant. His course at Harvard,
"Exercising Leadership," is legendary for its popularity with students
and for its impact on them. His students ( many of them in mid-career
) include leaders from all walks of life: business executives, generals,
priests and rabbis, politicians. His clients have included senior
executives at BellSouth, who brought him on to conduct a two-year
program on leadership in a fast-changing world, and the president
of Ecuador, who is struggling to lead that nation through tough
economic times.
What makes Heifetz's approach to leadership
so compelling is that he is so honest about what real leadership
demands. In a series of conversations with Fast Company, Heifetz
offered ideas, advice, and techniques for the leaders of the future.
The role of the leader is changing, Heifetz
argues. The new role is "to help people face reality and to mobilize
them to make change." And making change is painful: "Many people
have a 'smiley face' view of what it means to lead. They get a rude
awakening when they find themselves with a leadership opportunity.
Exercising leadership generates resistance -- and pain. People are
afraid that they will lose something that's worthwhile. They're
afraid that they're going to have to give up something that they're
comfortable with." <click
here for the full story...>
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The
ability to listen. Those who are wrapped up in themselves and unaware
of the reality surrounding them will never produce success states
Rogers.