The New Leadership Reality is Here- Are You Ready?

Organizations will continue to contract and reposition in 2011. The new organizational reality requires enhanced leadership skills.

Is the persistent uncertainty of today’s business environment wreaking havoc with your career aspirations?

Are you constantly busy but not seeing the desired results?

Your way of thinking and your leadership behaviors must be in sync with the current reality.

Now is the time to overcome obstacles and discover ideas you can easily implement.

Join us for a complimentary webinar preview to hear how you can become the leader of choice during these challenging times. During the call you will discover 3 strategies you must focus on to create your desired success.

Strategy #1 – Developing Key Communication Skills for Engagement

Strategy # 2 – Learning the Art of Leading Change During Turbulent Times

Strategy #3 – Learning to Build Relationships – Up- Down and Across

Sign up on the best date and time below by clicking on the link. We will repeat the content on each of the days.

December 14, 2010 @ 1:00 pm Eastern –Register Here

December 15, 2010 @ 2:00 pm Eastern – Register Here  

December 16, 2010 @ 4:00 pm Eastern – Register Here

Complimentary Webinars on Productivity, Sales and Communications December 8, 9, 10

Have you ever been to a complimentary webinar that delivers meaningful value?  We are offering multiple webinars on productivity, sales and communications December 8^th, 9^th and 10^th.  Click the link to learn more and register.

End the Chaos – How to Become A Personal Productivity Champion in 2010  Tuesday 12/8 1pm EST

We will share proven strategies that will help “End the Chaos” and improve your time management during 2010.

Achieve Improved Results In 2010 – Communication Strategies That Fully Engage Your Team Wednesday 12/9 1pm EST

We will share effective and proven communication strategies to engage your team to deliver improved results.

How to Sell More in a Down Market  Thursday 12/10 1pm EST

We will share the actions you can take now to aggressively defend and grow your 2010 market share – regardless of market conditions or industry.

More information and webinar registration:  http://bit.ly/4IzTTC

Here are just a few testimonials from past attendees:

“Randy was very organized, articulate, and respectful of the audience and of the topic at hand. I learned helpful tips that I can use immediately in my business.”   -Evangeline C.  CFCR Steel Detailing Co.

“The format of the presentation modeled the theme/goal of eliminating wasted time and focusing on what matters most. Excellent presentation!!”   -Rose H.  Chief Operating Officer, Alliance Urgent Care

“I think all too often we forget the basic fundamentals. In the current environment those committed to executing their strategies are successful. This seminar is a refresher that we have to develop & execute our strategies if we want to stay on top. Thanks for that Randy!”   -Chris B.  Yellow Pages

“Randy reminded me of the importance of Role Plays in sales training. We have gotten away from this valuable tool and I intend to add role plays to our analytical sales training course that I organize and present. Thank you.”

-Jim F.  CENTRIA

To your success,

Randy

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Presentation Skills

How are your presentation skills ?

Specifically, how are your speaking skills ?

Many leaders underestimate the importance of developing their speaking skills. After all you only have to deliver a speech every once and awhile and you’ve gotten pretty good at just winging it. So why bother – right ? WRONG !!

Usually you are to busy too perfect the message or practice the delivery – so you do OK – at least everyone tells you so. You probably get comments like “nice job” – “excellent speech boss” from your co-workers or subordinates. You believe them and convince yourself next time you’ll do better because you’ll have the time to work on it – WRONG !! …. you never do.

I suggest you begin to develop better messages and delivery now – to help you to learn what a great speech is all about, I suggest you go to AMERICAN RHETORIC – Top 100 Speeches – HERE. You can listen and read the best speeches ever delivered and compare them with yours.

Ask yourself – what made that speech so good ?

You’ll discover the choice of words, the simplicity, the well timed pauses are just a few clues to a well made speech.

If you are looking for a couple of tools to improve your speaking and presentation skills – I recommend “Killer Presentation Skills” a DVD by J. Douglas Jefferys – HERE … and the best book I’ve read on the topic “Better to Best: How to Speak for Extraordinary Results – Every Time by David J. Dempsey 

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Developing Leaders

Although there many ways to help leaders develop in their role – leadership seminars, leadership workshops, mentoring, coaching from the boss, leadership professional coaching, self development plans – utilizing a leadership 360 degree feedback survey is the best place to start.

A leadership 360 degree feedback survey is a tool in which leaders rate themselves and receive confidential anonymous feedback from from a group of raters – their boss, their direct reports, their peers including customers as an option.

The purpose of a 360 degree feedback survey in leadership development is simply for managers and leaders within organizations to get a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses while providing a base for the creation of an individual development plan.

The results of a survey quickly identify “blind spots” and “disconnects” for the leader. As an example; if communication is a key competency the company wants their leaders to possess and the leader rates themselves as “excellent” and their direct reports rates the leader as “poor” we have a classic (and common) blind spot – the leader didn’t see it coming – and a disconnect – the leader and their direct reports are not on the same page … oops !

It’s important you have good detailed questions in your survey, otherwise the competency – communication skills – is too broad and you won’t know what aspect of communication skills to focus the leaders development on. As an example, the communication skills survey questions need to include questions about listening skills, presentation abilities, meeting effectiveness, written skills, verbal skills, communication timeliness, and other important elements that make up the competency.

This is only one example of the power of a leadership 360 degree survey … because now you have a well defined area to focus on developing the leader – Communication Skills.

Of course there are a number of leadership competencies you’ll want to measure leadership on – send an email request to info@leadershipcoaching360.com to receive a sample leadership 360 degree feedback report outlining 7 core leadership competencies with 95 measurement questions.

You can also use a 360 degree feedback tool to measure all employees in your company – but it does start with leadership and their development.

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The Last Lecture – Leadership Lesson 8

I found the Randy Pausch Last Lecture video and book very uplifting and inspiring – full of life and leadership lessons. If you haven’t seen the video, you can see it here … and you can get the book here.

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Brick Walls Are There For A Reason

While describing obstacles, in Mr. Pausch’s book on page 79 – last paragraph, he writes; “Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

In leadership we are faced with brick walls constantly. Both inside the company and outside the company.

With internal brick walls … you may hear others say, “you’ve got to pick your battles.” I say, forget that ! If you want something bad enough or if you believe in something strongly enough,  you fight for it. Yep, fight for it. But fight fair – use sound reasoning and rationale for getting over (or through) the brick wall. No politics – just facts and good timing while being persistent and patient.

However you must remember, your facts might be wrong and it’s possible the reason you want something may be for the “wrong reason”. Like you being selfish and you are fighting for something that is not in the best interest of the company.

So be sure you know how to recognize why the brick wall is there – either to prevent you from doing something stupid or to have you demonstrate your leadership skills in over coming obstacles.

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The Last Lecture – Leadership Lesson 2

I found the Randy Pausch Last Lecture video and book very uplifting and inspiring – full of life and leadership lessons. If you haven’t seen the video, you can see it here … and you can get the book here.

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Drive Carefully

“Just because you’re in the drivers seat, doesn’t mean you have to run people over”. (pg 23)

How many times do we see leaders in a position of power who use that power in a destructive way? – too many.

Traveling the other day, I met a flight instructor the other day who explained to me she was returning home from a training program where on the last day to close out the training, her boss had the opportunity to make all in attendance leave on a high note. But instead, for some unknown reason he chose to berate them and threaten them with their jobs if they didn’t do a better job … Nice !!

My experience tells me that when you are fortunate to be in a position to have 130 members of your team at any function, it is your job as a leader to provide some inspiration – get everyone fired up and excited about themselves and your company.

You do this with positive reinforcement of your direction, recognition, and rewards for the top performers in front of their peers – you give a reason for every single person to want to have a ticket to be on your bus. The person I met was going home to think about finding another job (actually finding another boss).

You may be in the drivers seat, but your team is on the bus and you should be taking them to where you want to go – “drive carefully”.

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Business Leaders of the Future

A couple of months ago I was invited to be a judge at an International Career Conference for DECA.

DECA is an international association of high school and college students studying marketing, management and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality and marketing sales and service.

My role was to provide real world evaluations of high school student business skills as they presented their business plans for new on-line business they envisioned.

The projects they presented were innovative and well thought out. But more importantly;

The students were passionate about their projects.

Their presentation skills were at a higher level then I expected.

Their written business plans were extremely thorough and organized.

They worked in teams and all understood their role on the team as they were properly prepared to answer my questions.

I say without hesitation, that the 50 or more students of the 18 projects I evaluated that day demonstrated the characteristics that I’d expect from the business leaders of the future.

When I am recruiting future leaders … I am starting with those at DECA.

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