- They have great self-esteem (...and they don't confuse this with self-image)
- They live up to their own personal values
- They use their personal strengths
Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
3 Characteristics of Great Leaders
We find that great leaders usually have 3 characteristics:
Multiple Intelligence - Howard Gardner
According to Howard Gardner there are multiple types of intelligence:
(see also video of Deepak Chopra at Google)
- Spatial Intelligence
- Linguistic Intelligence
- Logical-mathematical Intelligence
- Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence
- Musical Intelligence
- Interpersonal Intelligence
- Intrapersonal Intelligence
- Naturalistic Intelligence
- Existential (Spiritual) Intelligence
(see also video of Deepak Chopra at Google)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Mega Trends
Global Village
Globalisation levels the competitive playing field between industrialized and emerging countries, impacting every aspect of business. Economic issues are now increasingly international in nature and can affect all businesses, regardless of size and geographic location. The internet has accelerated the way we receive information and changed the way we view time and space.
Emerging Markets
The global economy is shifting as developing markets grow quickly and gain a larger role in the world economy. Global businesses are investing where the growth is.
Global Talent Contest
Global businesses struggle to attract, cultivate and retain talent. Leading-edge companies are working to build coherent global cultures and to improve the ability of managers to oversee a culturally and geographically diverse workforce.
The Income Chasm
Efficiency gains are causing the rich to get richer faster and the poor to get richer slower. With 25 percent of the world’s population holding 75 percent of the world’s wealth, income and wealth gaps create the potential for volatile business and political climates, particularly as food and energy prices rise.
Atmosfear
From climate change to constrained natural resources, consumers are concerned about the future of the environment and are demanding change to protect it. Businesses are warming to the cost savings that come from operating with more efficiency and to the revenue that comes from satisfying new client needs.
Future Tense
Simultaneous social, economic and political tensions in the world bring uncertainty and turbulence. Volatile food and energy prices combine with difficult credit markets to create less optimism about the immediate future.
Time to Market
Shrinking product life cycles are making it increasingly important for businesses to get innovative offerings into the hands of clients quickly. Companies must find fresh ways to respond to the ever-changing global marketplace or die trying.
Regulation
Regulation has grown substantially in recent years and is likely to accelerate further. From financial to environmental, to health and safety, more aspects of our lives are being regulated.
Big Data
Data is flooding in at rates never seen before – doubling every 18 months – as a result of greater access to customer data from public, proprietary and purchased sources, as well as new information gathered from the social web and from machine-to-machine.
Demographic Change
The world population is ageing and growing fast. The western world is seeing its society slowly shrinking while developing countries are experiencing high birth rates. This leads to migration and some serious demographic imbalances.
Security Fear
As reports of conflicts around the world gather pace, individuals start to become more aware of global risks and how they could be impacted by them. Security fears range from physical risk, best represented by terrorism, to digital concerns with breach of privacy. Individuals are keener than ever to ensure that their world is safe.
Anything as a Service
Technology now enables companies to monitor, measure, customise and bill for asset use at a more detailed level than ever before. Asset owners can therefore create services around what have traditionally been sold as products.
Social Media
Social media is defining how we work, play, learn, share, discover. The exchange of information is now flowing at unprecedented rates and will continue to increase.
Other Market Trends
…
Globalisation levels the competitive playing field between industrialized and emerging countries, impacting every aspect of business. Economic issues are now increasingly international in nature and can affect all businesses, regardless of size and geographic location. The internet has accelerated the way we receive information and changed the way we view time and space.
Emerging Markets
The global economy is shifting as developing markets grow quickly and gain a larger role in the world economy. Global businesses are investing where the growth is.
Global Talent Contest
Global businesses struggle to attract, cultivate and retain talent. Leading-edge companies are working to build coherent global cultures and to improve the ability of managers to oversee a culturally and geographically diverse workforce.
The Income Chasm
Efficiency gains are causing the rich to get richer faster and the poor to get richer slower. With 25 percent of the world’s population holding 75 percent of the world’s wealth, income and wealth gaps create the potential for volatile business and political climates, particularly as food and energy prices rise.
Atmosfear
From climate change to constrained natural resources, consumers are concerned about the future of the environment and are demanding change to protect it. Businesses are warming to the cost savings that come from operating with more efficiency and to the revenue that comes from satisfying new client needs.
Future Tense
Simultaneous social, economic and political tensions in the world bring uncertainty and turbulence. Volatile food and energy prices combine with difficult credit markets to create less optimism about the immediate future.
Time to Market
Shrinking product life cycles are making it increasingly important for businesses to get innovative offerings into the hands of clients quickly. Companies must find fresh ways to respond to the ever-changing global marketplace or die trying.
Regulation
Regulation has grown substantially in recent years and is likely to accelerate further. From financial to environmental, to health and safety, more aspects of our lives are being regulated.
Big Data
Data is flooding in at rates never seen before – doubling every 18 months – as a result of greater access to customer data from public, proprietary and purchased sources, as well as new information gathered from the social web and from machine-to-machine.
Demographic Change
The world population is ageing and growing fast. The western world is seeing its society slowly shrinking while developing countries are experiencing high birth rates. This leads to migration and some serious demographic imbalances.
Security Fear
As reports of conflicts around the world gather pace, individuals start to become more aware of global risks and how they could be impacted by them. Security fears range from physical risk, best represented by terrorism, to digital concerns with breach of privacy. Individuals are keener than ever to ensure that their world is safe.
Anything as a Service
Technology now enables companies to monitor, measure, customise and bill for asset use at a more detailed level than ever before. Asset owners can therefore create services around what have traditionally been sold as products.
Social Media
Social media is defining how we work, play, learn, share, discover. The exchange of information is now flowing at unprecedented rates and will continue to increase.
Other Market Trends
…
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Class Struggles versus Evolution of Consciousness
Karl Marx regarded Class Struggles as the main driver for Societal Developments:
"The history of all existing societies so far is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
"Die Geschichte aller bisherigen Gesellschaft ist die Geschichte von Klassenkämpfen.
Freier und Sklave, Patrizier und Plebejer, Baron und Leibeigner, Zunftbürger und Gesell, kurz, Unterdrücker und Unterdrückte standen in stetem Gegensatz zu einander, führten einen ununterbrochenen, bald versteckten bald offenen Kampf, einen Kampf, der jedesmal mit einer revolutionären Umgestaltung der ganzen Gesellschaft endete, oder mit dem gemeinsamen Untergang der kämpfenden Klassen.""The history of all existing societies so far is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
"Die Geschichte aller bisherigen Gesellschaft ist die Geschichte von Klassenkämpfen.
(Friedrich Engels / Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto / Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei)
This Marxism view is mainly based on the underlying concept of subordination.
Nevertheless, what would happen, if the members of the different classes would realise that there is a fundamental commonality amongst them, a systemic connection between the oppressor and the oppressed? What would happen, if the consciousness would evolve even further, disclosing a complete underlying coherence / oneness?
Such an evolution of consciousness would clearly dissolve the boundaries between classes and hence take away the driver of societal development in Karl Marx definition. Anyhow, there is sufficient reason to believe that reaching an advanced level of consciousness with regard to systemic relationships, coherence and oneness will lead to massive societal developments.
This provides mankind with two principle options to choose from when addressing societal development:
- Continue to facilitate class struggles by widening the gaps, driving towards a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or the common ruin of the contending classes
- Creating a wider consciousness that drives an evolutionary re-constitution of society at large without the risk of common ruin and re-creation of new class struggles.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Steve Jobs: Stay hungry, stay foolish
Steve Jobs talks to Stanford University Graduates about connecting the dots, love, loss and death.
Click here to see the video on YouTube.
Click here to see the video on YouTube.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Making an Impact
When having been asked in the past about what would be important for me when taking on specific roles / tasks I have often replied: "I want to make an impact."
Those who tend to make impacts are often referred to as change agents.
I also remember a senior business leader during a conference stating that "Leaders leave a legacy", which in other words could be translated into "They make a sustainable impact".
Whilst making an impact as such might be a nice ambition it still lacks a sufficient reference point or scope. This means that one can make an impact on a number of different things/aspects. When for example referring to a business environment one could make an impact on a specific project, on a specific customer, on a specific business unit or on an entire company.
When thinking about professional and - probably even more important - personal development in that context, it would seem legitimate to consider a growing scope of desired impact as an indication for professional/personal growth.
Being aware of your current scope of impact is the starting point to evaluate what scope of impact you would desire in the future.
On that journey some people could find that their own personal development might take them beyond focussing their scope of impact only on a specific business environment. Those people will want to make a sustainable impact on much wider aspects.
Those who tend to make impacts are often referred to as change agents.
I also remember a senior business leader during a conference stating that "Leaders leave a legacy", which in other words could be translated into "They make a sustainable impact".
Whilst making an impact as such might be a nice ambition it still lacks a sufficient reference point or scope. This means that one can make an impact on a number of different things/aspects. When for example referring to a business environment one could make an impact on a specific project, on a specific customer, on a specific business unit or on an entire company.
When thinking about professional and - probably even more important - personal development in that context, it would seem legitimate to consider a growing scope of desired impact as an indication for professional/personal growth.
Being aware of your current scope of impact is the starting point to evaluate what scope of impact you would desire in the future.
On that journey some people could find that their own personal development might take them beyond focussing their scope of impact only on a specific business environment. Those people will want to make a sustainable impact on much wider aspects.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Difference between Leadership and Management
There is a difference between Leadership and Management.
The degree to which you need leadership vs management skills in an organization depends on the maturity/stability of an organization at any given point in time. Management is more transactional and keeps existing systems running. Leadership is more transformational and hence helps to create, develop and change businesses.
A lot of businesses are in a period of change and therefore Leadership skills are very important.
Old corporate cultures often promoted a non-collaborative management style. You might even argue if that happened deliberately or only “by accident” because the impact of such a culture on the long-term success of the company had not been thought through thoroughly enough by the senior management in the past.
The challenge is to break the habits which in the past have let to success of the individual managers (…as opposed to leaders...) in your business. Change needs to happen on an individual basis. We need to win the hearts and minds of everyone to believe in the new way of working. And we have to be honest: Not every person has the ability/flexibility or willingness to change.
Real leaders act as change agents. They actively drive the transformation. Leadership should be infectious, it should “spark” people, it should drive people towards a common goal.
Leaders should therefore encompass three main elements: Vision, Passion and Authenticity
Authenticity - and hence leadership - often breaks because what people do is not in line with what they say. (This doesn't even take into account that people might neither say nor do what they really think/believe)
Assuming that people actually think/believe and say the right things in line with the new business direction, the challenge is to align their behavior - meaning what they actually do - to ensure their authenticity and hence effective leadership.
Peoples actual behavior is influenced by their individual circumstances and their experience. Some people have strong values, principles and ethics which predominantly drive their behavior, whilst other people choose to (…or are even forced to…) be predominately driven by incentives.
Whilst the right incentive system will potentially not solve all of the issues associated with a corporate transformation, we need to be aware that some company cultures are extremely receptive to incentives and that often the vast majority of managers still orientate their behavior more on incentives than on certain values, principles and ethics.
That's what distinguishes usual managers from great leaders.
The degree to which you need leadership vs management skills in an organization depends on the maturity/stability of an organization at any given point in time. Management is more transactional and keeps existing systems running. Leadership is more transformational and hence helps to create, develop and change businesses.
A lot of businesses are in a period of change and therefore Leadership skills are very important.
Old corporate cultures often promoted a non-collaborative management style. You might even argue if that happened deliberately or only “by accident” because the impact of such a culture on the long-term success of the company had not been thought through thoroughly enough by the senior management in the past.
The challenge is to break the habits which in the past have let to success of the individual managers (…as opposed to leaders...) in your business. Change needs to happen on an individual basis. We need to win the hearts and minds of everyone to believe in the new way of working. And we have to be honest: Not every person has the ability/flexibility or willingness to change.
Real leaders act as change agents. They actively drive the transformation. Leadership should be infectious, it should “spark” people, it should drive people towards a common goal.
Leaders should therefore encompass three main elements: Vision, Passion and Authenticity
- Leaders need to have their own vision. If their own individual vision happens to be in line with the corporate vision we have the right people and the necessary “buy-in” and we can be sure that the leadership team pulls into the same direction.
- Leaders need to be passionate. Passion keeps the drive towards the realization of the vision and helps overcome the obstacles. Passion is a strong source for the intrinsic motivation and energy that is needed in a transformation.
- Leaders need to be authentic. Authenticity exists when (a) what you say, (b) what you do and (c) what you think/believe is fully in sync. Authenticity creates trust, which is the basis for engaging with individuals and creating teams.
Authenticity - and hence leadership - often breaks because what people do is not in line with what they say. (This doesn't even take into account that people might neither say nor do what they really think/believe)
Assuming that people actually think/believe and say the right things in line with the new business direction, the challenge is to align their behavior - meaning what they actually do - to ensure their authenticity and hence effective leadership.
Peoples actual behavior is influenced by their individual circumstances and their experience. Some people have strong values, principles and ethics which predominantly drive their behavior, whilst other people choose to (…or are even forced to…) be predominately driven by incentives.
Whilst the right incentive system will potentially not solve all of the issues associated with a corporate transformation, we need to be aware that some company cultures are extremely receptive to incentives and that often the vast majority of managers still orientate their behavior more on incentives than on certain values, principles and ethics.
That's what distinguishes usual managers from great leaders.
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