Leadership « Small Fish Business Coaching

If I’m leading, why is nobody following?

ASTD-NRC: Northern Rockies Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development

Join us on January 20th for this skills-focused work session where Carl Dierschow will explain to us the five powerful principles of Leadership Coaching. This will change the way you coach those who work with you – both as a [...]

Impending turnover

I read an interesting column today, 2011 could mark beginning of true recovery, by local author Jerry Thurber. He’s talking specifically about the employment background checking industry, but when it comes to recovery, this clearly applies to all the corporate customers which will hire companies such as his.

Continue reading Impending turnover

The myth of what customers want

There’s a simple formula to business success: Do what your customers say they want, they’ll reward you with money, and everybody will be satisfied.

The problem is that it’s not true.

Fake bus stop helps Alzheimer’s patients

I heard about a very interesting idea tested by the owners of a rest home in Düsseldorf, Germany. Worried about Alzheimer’s patients who would wander off, and not wanting to make the home feel like a prison, they simply placed a fake bus stop outside. As they expected, disoriented patients would calmly wait at the bus [...]

Are your high performance workers leaving?

An article today in the Colorado Springs Business Journal alerted me to a new study at Right Management which indicates that 54% of employers report losing high-performance workers during the first half of this year. As soon as I’m able to chase down the source for this I’ll post it here. Or if you know where [...]

Flexibility results in trust

I read an interesting article in the Financial Times today entitled Flexible Leaders Reap Reward of Trust. This reinforces what I’ve been talking about with the connection between leadership skill and employee engagement. This is based on a study from the Institute of Leadership and Management, a London-based organization which supports the development of leaders.

A recent survey of 5,000 employees shows a strong correlation between management actions in recent years and the trust of employees. Those leaders who chose to employ the most draconian downsizings resulted in extraordinarily low trust levels. Continue reading Flexibility results in trust

Creating healthy competition

I ran across an interesting HBR article today entitled “Is Your Culture Too Nice?“ It’s pretty thought-provoking, because I’ve become accustomed to polite work cultures, feeling uncomfortable with those which are more confrontational.

Why can’t we all just get along?

But the challenge here is to distinguish two ideas which tend to get muddled together:

Continue reading Creating healthy competition

Leadership principle #7: Value

When it comes down to it, your employees want to spend their days doing useful things. People can only exist in a limbo of inaction for so long, and then they become restless.

Granted, there are many different kinds of “doing.”

Continue reading Leadership principle #7: Value

Engaging in your work and life

Engagement comes from the combination of investing one’s passion and energies plus the trust that those energies will not be in vain.
- Jeff Rogers

I just had to share this quote with you today, as it’s so appropriate for what we’ve been talking about with engaging your employees with their work.

What would cause an employee to trust that their work won’t be in vain?

Continue reading Engaging in your work and life

Will your upcoming leaders disappear?

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article yesterday, titled Leadership Training Gains Urgency Amid Stronger Economy. They remind us of some important dynamics in leadership development:

Existing leadership continues to age, many now getting dangerously close to retirement age.
Leadership ranks have been downsized as the workforce has experienced the same crunch.
Investments in leadership development have waned (or have been eliminated) due to the recent economic turmoil.

Continue reading Will your upcoming leaders disappear?

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