Leadership Articles

Business » Leadership | By Lee Colan @ Sunday, 19th February 2006 @ 2:14 AM

How many times have we been told the formula for maintaining a healthy weight is to eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly? Everybody knows the formula, although sophisticated marketers package it in many creative ways. So if we all know what the formula is, why is it so difficult to apply it to our lives? The secret to losing weight is not in knowing the formula – it’s in applying what we already know. Most organizations understand how to develop a strategy, but many fail to su... more...

Business » Leadership | By John Morris @ Friday, 17th February 2006 @ 6:29 PM

In difficult situations, when companies are in crisis and can only be saved by major effort, group morale often rises to far higher levels than before. Individual objections and objectives are bypassed in the collective drive to do what must be done. This is where recognition awards take its importance. High group morale can enrich individual motivation and performance remarkably! I. Planned Awards: 1. Recognition Awards On its basic concept, recognition awards are effecti... more...

Business » Leadership | By Lee Colan @ Thursday, 16th February 2006 @ 7:59 PM

In today’s hyper-competitive market, a burning question for most companies is: “How can we achieve a significant and sustainable competitive advantage in order to retain our customers?” After all, keeping existing customers is five times less expensive than finding new ones. That’s good business in anyone’s book. Traditional competitive factors like product design, technology and distribution channels are harder to sustain in a super-fast, mega-networked world. In fact, the good old “Fo... more...

Business » Leadership | By John Morris @ Wednesday, 15th February 2006 @ 8:22 PM

Regular, one-on-one assessments with your staff provide an efficient two-way forum with which to set and review realistic achievement targets, provide feedback on performance, and listen to and consider any problems employees may have. For example, a sales executive may feel that he or she is under performing, when in fact sales targets have been set too high. During the appraisal, these targets could be reviewed and set at more realistic levels. And after the goals have been met and the targets... more...

Business » Leadership | By John Morris @ Monday, 13th February 2006 @ 4:19 PM

Today’s fast-moving business environment demands that the effective manager be both a well-organized administrator and highly adept in understanding people’s basic needs and behaviour in the workplace. Gaining commitment, nurturing talent, and ensuring employee motivation and productivity require open communication and trust between managers and staff. 1. Understand their behaviour People at work naturally tend to adopt instinctive modes of behaviour that are self-protective rather... more...

Business » Leadership | By John Morris @ Saturday, 11th February 2006 @ 4:04 PM

Today’s employees, particularly those involved with corporate finance and other major business sectors, are leaning more towards corporate event management and corporate entertainment as a key source of contentment and happiness at work. This reflects the emergence of what has become defined as corporate culture - one that recognizes the need to keep staff happy through team games, special event days and other activities that help build camaraderie and teamwork. 1. Happy Workers Work Hard... more...

Business » Leadership | By Cathy Warschaw @ Tuesday, 7th February 2006 @ 10:10 PM

We’ve all heard the saying, “There’s no ‘I’ in Team.” Team building has been a goal of the workplace for many years because of the numerous benefits it brings. Team building is a great way to have fun and energize coworkers, build and strengthen coworker and employer relationships, and improve productivity in the workforce. With all these great benefits, it’s easy to see why developing collaboration in the office is usually one of the top five business priorities of an employer! <... more...

Business » Leadership | By Michael Ochoa @ Thursday, 2nd February 2006 @ 9:26 PM

Another year is just about ready to finish and it is time to start thinking about next year. If you own your own business or you manage a business division, then you need to ask yourself if all of the expectations that were set forth at the beginning of the year were met. If not then maybe what stopped you was a lack of goals and objectives, or just a lack of a good process to use when planning them. The goal setting process is essential to the success or failure of the business, and many car... more...

Business » Leadership | By Martin Haworth @ Saturday, 28th January 2006 @ 5:51 PM

Much has been said over the years about leadership styles. Yet research into the best and most practical overview leads to the easiest conclusion (there will always be variables on these, as well as mixes of them), are that there are four distinct leadership styles. With one to avoid as well! 1. The Autocrat This leadership style is one that is typically less prevalent now than it was in the 70's and 80's. This leader thrives on leading from the front making all the decis... more...

Business » Leadership | By Joe DiSabatino @ Saturday, 28th January 2006 @ 6:10 AM

In a speech given at the American Accounting Association’s annual meeting in 2003, Arthur Wyatt describes in detail, with particular reference to Anderson Accounting, how the majority of big accounting firms’ adherence to their professional core values slowly eroded over a period of 30 years. The auditing divisions of these firms became less and less central as other more profitable consulting functions moved to the forefront. As a result, Anderson and the other big firm’s emphasis shift... more...

Business » Leadership | By Katherine Ly @ Thursday, 26th January 2006 @ 6:50 PM

Great leaders lead by example, not just talk or orders. Leading by example will garner respect and admiration from the troops as well as compliance. In a network marketing company, recruits join voluntarily so it's up to them whether they will follow you or quit. You can't use force or order them around like a boss does in a traditional job. The best way to get recruits to do things is to motivate them with their goals dangling in front of them like a carrot by remind them wh... more...

Business » Leadership | By Roger Schwarz @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 3:28 AM

I once was part of a group of management professors who often taught in executive development seminars. Other non-management professors in the school ran these. Occasionally these non-management professors would approach someone else in the management group to express their concerns about our teaching - they wouldn't approach the person who had taught for them. For example, if I had taught the session, the professor - let's call him Larry - would approach my colleague Dick and ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Robin Chandler @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 12:20 AM

We think the term 'training' is too restrictive, and we only use it because that is the context within which many organisations can understand what we do. But whether you call it people skills training, interpersonal skills training, soft skills training or professional personal development, what we're talking about is people changing what they do in order to be more effective, more able and quite simply, happier at their job and in their personal lives. What we do know is ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Saleem Rana @ Tuesday, 24th January 2006 @ 8:27 PM

In my study of people who have a knack for success, who seem to make the accurate choice at the best time, and who appear to constantly be in the right place at the right time, I noticed some essential success principles that they all use. Their use of these principles is almost automatic. In other words, it is hard-wired into their nervous system. It is reflexive. It is an aspect of their subconscious programming. No doubt there are many other principles responsible for their s... more...

Business » Leadership | By Paul Megan @

Promotion is one of those things almost everyone wants after a successful job search. But no one is bold enough to ask for it. If you’re determined to get ahead after a successful job search and are willing to follow some simple steps, you can move the odds of a promotion significantly in your favor. 1. Under NO circumstances do you ever ask for a promotion! 2. Get yourself a mentor. Someone a level or two above you that you feel comfortable with . . . with whom you can ta... more...

Business » Leadership | By Joe DiSabatino @

A good friend of mine, C, was the manager of the human factors group for a telecommunications software engineering company. Her boss called her aside one day. It turned out that the CEO of the company had noticed and complained that a number of her team members were regularly seen hanging around, small-talking in one office. That’s not what he was paying them to do, the CEO complained. Didn’t she notice what was happening? Her boss instructed C. to pass on the reprimand and see to it that the... more...

Business » Leadership | By Robin Chandler @

Once you've been hired to do a job, particularly if it's a well paid and/or high-flying job, you're supposed to know everything, be able to handle everything with ease, deal with other people's problems and in general be super-person. Right? Well, not exactly. There are loads of people who get hired for, or promoted to, really good jobs because of the skills and capabilities they have demonstrated. Yet six months later they are floundering and don't appear to be u... more...

Business » Leadership | By Alan Boyer @

Have you ever heard someone offer a positive idea in a meeting and nearly everyone around the table shoots it down immediately? There seems to be more reasons why it can’t or shouldn’t happen than in ways to make it happen. Many times these meetings become downer meetings, spiraling downward toward failure, and everyone leaves in frustration. Does it seem that your meetings never accomplish anything? Stop fighting the negative and use the negatives to drive toward the positive. more...

Business » Leadership | By Robin Chandler @

What makes a good leader? Leadership development Ever since we started Impact Factory, lo these many years ago, we have struggled with the whole notion of leadership development or leadership training. Indeed, we have resisted writing about it in much detail because the subject is so subjective. Are leaders born or made? Can you use management leadership training to give leadership skills to someone who isn't leadership material? How is it done? Given that we... more...

Business » Leadership | By Martin Haworth @

Building a team of motivated people in your business is vital to get the very best results, but so many managers focus on the 'ra-ra-ra', rather than the important things - the things that make people feel comfortable in their working environment. Here are eight that you might want to have a think about: 1. The Weather Is it too hot, or too cold. Your people need an environment which is, like Goldilocks said, 'Just right'. So is the office too stuffy in s... more...