Improving Leadership Effectivess Gets Results

Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, talks about increasing our awareness of our leadership “blind spots”. Why?

Leadership blind spots undermine our effectiveness: Our effectiveness in:

• Setting goals
• Aligning employees
• Responding to the marketplace
• Achieving results
• Building quality relationships

Improving your leadership skills has a real (and positive) impact on your business. Increasing our leadership effectiveness result in:

• Actionable goals that move the business forward
• Engaged employees who provide great customer service
• Insights into business changes to capitalize on the marketplace
• Improved business results
• Rewarding relationships

So, how do you gain awareness of your leadership blind spots?
Which ones are impeding your leadership effectiveness?
How do you overcome them?
What strategies have you used to counter them?
How did this experience make you a better leader?
How did this impact your business?

What’s your experience?

Come and join other business owners on Thursday, February 4th in an invigorating discussion around these and other questions related to leadership effectiveness!

Habit # 1 -- Winning too much -- What does that mean?

Goldsmith discusses in his book how winning too much is really a symptom of being overly competitive. How can being overly competitive undermine our effectiveness as a leader?


Winning too much actually affects our behavior. It impacts our interactions with others, especially our employees.

Think about the last time you met someone who you would consider a "know it all". What was it that irritated you? Was it that they always "had the answer". Or they "had to have the last word". Or they "wouldn't concede" that maybe they didn't have all the information or wasn't "right" this time. This behavior is "about winning" at whatever cost to their relationships.

How does this type of behavior undermine our leadership effectiveness?

As a leader, our job is to help develop our employees. How well are we developing our employees if "we always have the answers" or "have to have the last word" or "won't listen to new ideas"? This kind of leader drives employees away and causes them to disengage. Can your business afford this?

So, what can we do? Recognize this trait within yourself and count to 10 before responding. Think before you speak. Instead of having the right answers all the time help your employees develop the problem solving skills to solve it on their own. Walk them through the thought-process for arriving at the right answer by asking a series of open-ended questions.

If you have to have the "last word" STOP! Ask yourself if it's really necessary. And only when it's ABSOLUTELY necessary give the last word.

What ideas do you have?

Feel free to post your own and join in the live discussion on Thursday, February 4th at the ILSBDC at Harper College location. See the information on the left hand column to register.

Until then -- Be the best you can be!

Are these fatal flaws holding you back from being an effective leader in your organization?

In the book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the author Marshall Goldsmith identifies the following flaws in leader’s which stunt their leadership development:

1. Winning too much
2. Adding too much value
3. Passing judgments
4. Making destructive comments
5. Starting with “No”, “But” or “However”
6. Telling the world how smart we are
7. Speaking when angry
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”
9. Withholding information
10. Failing to give proper recognition
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
12. Making excuses
13. Clinging to the past
14. Playing favorites
15. Refusing to express regret
16. Not listening
17. Failing to express gratitude
18. Punishing the messenger
19. Passing the buck
20. An excessive need to be “me”

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think I do these things, do I?  Who says winning is ever "too much".  I thought being a leader meant being a "winner" -- so how can this be a bad thing?  How can adding too much value be a fatal flaw as a leader?  Isn't our job suppose to be adding value each and everyday?  Isn't that what we are being paid for?

What do you think?  Continually developing our leadership skills, as a small business owner, can be difficult.  Typically, we are the "leadership team" in our company.  How do we know if we are doing any of these things?  Good question!  The first step to develop your leadership skills further is to gain some awareness -- do this simple exercise:  Create a list of these 20 items.  For the next week monitor yourself.  Each time you catch yourself doing any one of these leadership flaws, place a hash mark next to the flaw.  What did you learn?  You may want to have your employees keep track too.  Wouldn't that be interesting -- see how many times they observe these flaws verses our own tracking.  This may provide you with some incredible insight!

To learn more, come to our February 4th Business Book Discussion to learn from other small business owners on what they learned and strategies to further develop your leadership skills.