Your company is growing and has gained recognition and success.  Your culture and employees are thriving and you are so proud of everyone’s accomplishments.

Yet …

you feel something is missing.  You can’t put your finger on what.  After all, it’s been a challenging journey.  In many ways, you and your organization have arrived at its desired destination.

How could something be missing?

Guess what?

You are not alone.

That gnawing feeling of something missing is a positive thing.  It’s a sign your soul is stirring …

To something greater than your role and your company.  To a grander purpose.

You are becoming an awakener.

In today’s ever increasing complexity and change, you are being called to operate at a new level of consciousness.  To transcend your mission statement, competition and engagement practices.

Are ready to make that leap?

What Is a Leadership Awakener?

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

Robert Frost

Most leaders’ roles and identities evolve.  Let’s take a look at one natural progression of a leader’s role.  Every role is important.

1.   Coach

Traditional coaching focuses on behavior.  The goal of a leader as coach is to improve the behavior of his/her team.

When leaders assume the role of coach, they are observing and giving feedback.  For example – coaching someone how to communicate more respectfully to teammates.

2.   Teacher

Teaching focuses on cognitive skills and capabilities.

A leader wearing the hat of teacher focuses on building  competencies and thinking capabilities – such as how to read a P&L statement or presentation skills.

3.   Mentor

Coaches and teachers focus on the external aspects of performance.  Mentors, however, focus on the internal aspects – ie., employees’ beliefs and values.

A leader wearing the hat of mentor focuses on influencing a person’s beliefs and values in a positive way – such as, believing in him/herself.

4.   Awakener

While awakening is definitely not a common term within organizations, leaders who operate at a high level of consciousness and being are the awakeners in the business world.

A leader as an awakener operates at the level of spirit or Higher Self.   Such leaders have the capacity to transcend their own mental maps (beliefs, values, identity) and connect with a greater Force within themselves and others.

Leadership Awakeners are the Game Changers of the World.

Are you ready to make the leap?

Leadership awakeners think differently. Perceive differently.  Decide differently.  Here are 3 (among many) distinctions.

As an awakener …

You View the Organization as a Hologram

What the heck is a hologram?!

A hologram is a 3 dimensional representation created with the use of a laser using a process called holography.

The fascinating property of holograms is that you can cut it up in tiny pieces and actually create the whole from a single part.

Not only does the whole contain all the parts.  Every part contains information about the whole.

WOW!!  Isn’t that mind blowing?!

The implications to an organization are huge!   The concept of a hologram says that every function … every product/service … every employee contains within it information about your entire company.

Nelson Mandela used this principle in transforming South Africa. He knew that the greatest chance of unifying the country was not through a top-down approach of sweeping changes.

Rather, that unity (the whole) would come from his relentless support of the country’s all white rugby team (a part) in the World Cup.  He rightly assumed that victory would unify the country.  The rest is history.

Applying the holographic property can accelerate success within your company.  Let’s look at 2 examples.

If you are like most leaders, you use a top-down approach in planning or envisioning your future.  That is, you take the whole and you break it into parts.  That approach has merit in certain contexts.

What if … with your next strategic plan, you instead take a bottoms up approach, using the holographic principle?

What if … you were to improve the weakest link in your organization (eg., competencies or efficiencies) and made that the focus of your strategic plan?

How would that one small change impact the performance of the entire organization?

How about applying the holographic principle to problem-solving?

What if … the next time your team solves a customer service or process problem, you focus on solving the bigger organizational issue – such as lack of cohesive teams? 

What would that do to your profitability, productivity and quality?

You See Competition as an Illusion

In our Western culture, we obsess about beating our competition and becoming the best.

That obsession shows in our love for “Best ____” lists and awards.  Fortune’s Top 100 Companies, 50 Best Places to Work for, Inc. 500/5000 and Top 40 Under 40 to name a few.

While competition can be a blessing, fueling higher standards and innovation.   It can equally be a curse.

It conditions you to think in terms of winning and losing or a zero sum game.  Those leaders who operate from a win/lose paradigm can’t see another way.

The truth is …

Competition is an illusion.

You will never win long term with this paradigm.  However, there is a more optimal paradigm from which leaders can operate.

John Nash –- behavioral economist and Nobel Prize recipient – is best known for advancing game theory and the equilibrium principle.

In simple terms, his work showed that …

the best result comes when everyone in a group (team, market, etc.) does what’s best for themselves and for the group.

His findings say that when your company works TOGETHER with — not against – your “competitors,” you ALL will be better off than if you worked at cross-purposes with each other.

Example:  Toyota and BMW have collaborated to create an environmentally friendly luxury car.  They shared costs and knowledge for electric car battery research.  BMW supplied diesel engines to Toyota.  Everybody won, especially the customer.

How might collaborating with a competitor reduce delivery times and costs, open up new markets or strengthen your position rather than weaken it?

Below are additional resources and examples to delve further about collaborating with competitors.

Collaborate with Your Competitors … and Win, 

Friendly Competition:  Competitors Collaborate  (video)

You Know That Perceived Limitations Are Wake-Up Calls

Stop for a moment.  Take inventory of ways you and/or your organization …

·      Struggle or effort

·      Feel fear when your customers or the economy slow down

·      Have hit a ceiling in growth, profits or performance

·      Don’t have money or time for critical projects

Your perceived limitations are your own creation.  Not consciously though.  You are stuck in the limiting confines of your own thinking.

Attribution: Canstock.com

When you hit such limits, you tend to panic at the edge between the known and unknown.  You fight for certainty and control.  Yet more knowledge, analyses and busyness are NOT the answer.

To transcend these limitations, you must awaken to another reality.  The world of Potentiality.  The world of unbounded possibilities.

In this new awakened state, you tap into a greater Force within yourself and beyond yourself.  You fear no challenge.  You are immune to criticism.  Self-power – or knowledge of Self — becomes your true source of power.

The question is … how do you awaken that part?

Here are 2 ways:

1.  Practice “not knowing”

Exploring the unknown opens the door to unlimited creativity and possibilities.

Start with a question or concern.  Let go of all knowledge, assumptions and ready answers.  Adopt a beginner’s mind.  Openness, curiosity, inquiry, reflection and learning are essential.  Take time to explore what you don’t know.  What new possibilities emerge from “not knowing?”

When practicing “not knowing,” you transcend fear of the unknown and engage in new possibilities.  You are excited about opportunities the unknown presents.

2.  Transcend your own mental maps

Your mental map are unconscious filters – beliefs, values, identity, etc. – that drive focus and perception.  These maps ARE the boundary conditions of your thinking.

When I work with leaders, my first goal is to uncover their mental maps.  Then change them to expand possibilities within themselves and then within others.  Because there is no set procedure, there are no steps I can give you for that change.

However, even if it is for a few brief moments initially, you can learn to transcend your mental maps.

Get quiet.   Go to that place within yourself where there are no fears.   No limiting beliefs.  No internal conflicts.  Trust your higher Self to take you there.  You will know you are there because you feel a sense of peace and ultimately pure silence.  It’s from that place new possibilities emerge.

Summary

The ultimate calling of a leader is to awaken the grander purpose and possibilities within themselves and then their employees.

Becoming a leadership awakener is the highest level of consciousness from which you can lead.  You transcend the mental maps, knowledge and expertise that limit your potential.  You lead from a level of spirit that knows no boundaries.

Life and work take on new meaning.  Struggles become a thing of the past.  You are at peace even in the midst of turmoil.

The question is …

Are ready to make that leap?

The post Real Leaders Become Awakeners appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Fears keeping you small

All leaders have fears.  However, not all your fears are created equal.

Some may manifest as low level anxieties.  Some are life paralyzing phobias.  Some may be triggered only by certain events – like fear of public speaking.  Others may be life-long fears.

Then there are the “big guns.”  These are the core unconscious leadership  fears from which all other fears come.  They override every aspect of your being.

In this article you will learn 7 unconscious leadership fears that keep you small.  First, it’s important to understand the nature of fear.

3 Truths About Fear Every Leader Needs to Know

1.     Fear is indestructible. 

Your brain is wired for fear. It is essential for your physical survival.  You want fear to send you signals when you are in danger, in an unsafe situation or about to make a high stakes mistake. Fear is your friend in those circumstances.

2.     Fear comes from a mental construct. 

Fear is a byproduct of your thoughts.  Your fear thoughts are mental constructs – meaning they have no basis in reality. As the saying goes, fear is “false evidence appearing real.”

The emotion of fear is real.  The content of your fear — your thoughts — is not real.  In your mind, though, you believe that your fear thoughts are reality.

To free yourself of such fear, you need to dislodge the mental constructs which drive fear.  Fear thoughts are of your own making and they can be unmade.

3.     Fearlessness does not exist.

Are you a leader that fantasizes about the day when you will be free of all fear?

Guess what?  It’s not going to happen.  Buying into the belief of fearlessness is a trap.  It’s an impossible goal to reach!  Even those who have achieved extraordinary feats have fear.

Your goal should not be to eliminate all fear.  Rather it should be, as one author wrote, to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Below are 7 core unconscious leadership fears you want to know about.  They are hijacking your leadership success and potential.

7 Unconscious Leadership Fears That Keep You Small

As a leader, you will be plagued by thousands of fears in your role.  You will have surface fears – such as fear of public speaking or holding employees accountable.

Then there are the deep unconscious leadership fears that enslave you until you break free.

1.     Fear of fear itself

Being a leader is demanding, high stakes work.  It stretches every ounce of your being.  It tests your strength of courage, perseverance and resilience.

The demands can be so great and the fear so paralyzing that the only way of getting relief is to put your head in the sand and pretend fear does not exist.  In those circumstances, your dominating fear is of fear itself.

In the short term, pretending you have no fear to move forward with your goals and actions can actually be a healthy choice.

In the long term, however, the fears you are avoiding will sabotage your every attempt to play a bigger leadership game.

2.     Fear of (owning your) power

All leaders are powerful yet few know how powerful they really are.  True personal power (or lack of it) determines whether you show up on the cause or effects side of your outcomes equation.

Being at the effects side means you believe that things happen to you.  That you have little or no control on your outcomes.

When you own your leadership power, you believe that …

You are at cause for all the results in your life.

If you fear power, it is because you are conflicted about it.  You have negative associations or beliefs about what power means.

The truth is that you can’t fully contribute your leadership gifts and talents if you fear owning your own leadership power.

3.     Fear of “being found out”

Within every person, there are 3 selves — a Pretend Self, a Feared Self and an Authentic Self.  Your Pretend Self  is that part of you that feels a need to hide behind an imaginary mask.

You don’t want others to know that you feel inadequate in your leadership role.  You don’t feel as though you’re smart enough, experienced enough, confident enough (fill in the blank) to be in your leadership role.

You take on other personas out of fear of being “found out.”  You put on a strong face – pretending to have it all together – when deep inside you feel like a fraud.

When you pretend to be someone you are not, you can never be your authentic powerful self.

4.     Fear of sharing your power

The world of leadership is filled with paradoxes.  One of those paradoxes is about power.

To be an exceptional leader, you must own your personal power (as addressed in #2).  Doing so allows you to take charge of your own individual outcomes and be an example to others.

However, once a leader owns their power, he/she tends to hoard it – such as making all the decisions, resolving all conflicts, leading all meetings, etc.  You hoard power because you fear loss of importance and lack of control if you share it.

Yet for a company to flourish, power must be distributed and shared throughout the organization.  This means developing employees as personal leaders within their own roles and teams.  Allowing them to make decisions within their own scope.  Giving them the tools and know-how to resolve their own conflicts.

5.     Fear of Truth

Reality is truth.  Yet our brains are not capable of knowing 100% reality.  The reason … your brain can only process less than 1%  all the sensory data at any moment of time.

Your sense of reality — or perceived reality – comes from your beliefs, your sense of identity, your model of the world and so forth.  You become so attached to your own sense of reality, that you avoid new information (truth) that conflicts with your current (limited) thinking.

By no means is fear of truth exclusive to leaders.  However, avoidance of  truth can have dire consequences to leaders and their organizations. Your actions and decisions are driven by cognitive biases and those biases can be costly.

For example, success often blinds leaders and prevents them from seeing the truth of a looming future ahead.

6.     Fear of losing the known

For your company to grow, leaders must move into foreign territories where they have no prior experience.  In those situations, you don’t have a mental flashlight to guide you.  That can be scary.

In reality, it’s NOT your fear of the unknown that stops you.  After all, how can you fear something you don’t even know about?!

What you really fear is …

Fear of losing (or letting go) of the known

As you grow to new leadership levels, the new possibilities can be endless.  Yet seldom does your mind see these new changes as amazing opportunities.  Instead, you …

·      Fear losing your sense of safety when making a leap

·      Fear letting go of current routines and habits that give you predictability

·      Fear letting go of who you are for who you can be

7.     Fear of your own brilliance

While it is a rare leader who hasn’t dreamed of standing on the shoulders of giants, boldly stepping out and realizing your own greatness is a scary proposition.

Yes, the majority of leaders fear their own brilliance.

How do I know?

I observe it in such behaviors as …

·      Getting caught up in distractions – such as, always looking at your cell phone

·      Mindless activities

·      Chasing the externals to make you feel good about yourself.

Being visible in the world … rising above mediocrity … standing in the light of your authentic self, that takes radical courage.

Fear does not have rule you.  The key is to know how to dislodge it.

Dislodge Your Unconscious Leadership Fears in 5 Minutes 

Step1:  Name your fear.

To break the hold of your fear, first name it.  Boil it down to a single word – like SeenAsFake.

Step 2:  Personify your fear.

For example, if you fear fear itself, perhaps you personify it as a big black monster.  If you fear power, perhaps you imagine it as Hitler or mean sergeant.

Step 3:  ID visual and auditory associations with your fear persona (identified in #2).

When you think of your fear persona …

·      What’s the characteristics of the picture?  Black and white or colored?  Large or small?  Near or far?

·      What does he/she/it sound like?  Deep or high voice?   Fast or slow pace?  Loud or soft?

Step 4:  Change the identified associations above to their opposites to transform your fear. 

For example,

·      If your fear picture is black/white, large and near, change it to color, small and far.

·      If your fear voice has a low pitch, loud volume and slow pace, change it to high pitch, low volume and fast pace.

That’s it!  With this simple 4 step process, your fear will transform from a roar to a whisper.

Want to know more secrets how to rise to the top of your leadership game? 

Sign up for our free report below — Wired to Win Big:  7 Inner Game Leadership Strategies to Rise to the Top and Stay There.  The only game you ever need to win is the game within your mind!

The post 7 Unconscious Leadership Fears That Keep You Small appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Can your body language …

• Make a difference in commanding leadership authority?
• Create trust or mistrust within an organization?
• Change your emotions after a stressful day?

Absolutely!!

Leadership authority is a by-product of 2 related aspects of yourself – your physiology and your emotional state. Call them the yin and yang of leadership authority.

The purpose of this article is NOT to give you a list of gestures, postures or leadership do’s and don’ts to communicate authority. Your emotions and your body language are both driven by your mind. And your mind is too complex for such generalizations.

An effective gesture in one context may backfire in another context. A smile may uplift people in certain situations. A smile when someone is angry however may escalate more anger.

The goal of this article is to teach you how to use your body language for communicating leadership authority, building deep trust and even changing your emotional state. Your body language can enhance or destroy your business relationships and influence on others. Let’s look at why.

The Mind Body Leadership Connection

A physiology of confidence is different than a physiology of worry. Your emotions follow your physiology by responding to tension levels, breath rate, speed of movement and your focus. On the other end, scientists now know that different emotions have a clear physiological response shown through your body language.

For example, anger can be detected through such body signals as leaning forward, flushed face and invasion of someone else’s space. Fear often triggers a dry mouth, holding one’s breath, lack of eye contact and other “fight or flight” signals.

You can also intentionally alter your emotional state by altering your physiology. For example, taking a few deep breaths can transform anxiety and stress to relaxation and clarity in an instant.

Create your physiology of leadership.

Have you ever attended a Tony Robbins’ event? If you have, you know that Tony Robbins is Mr. Physiology himself.

Firewalk Steve Gamage (flickr)

He is a master at energizing thousands of people for long 18-20 hour days non-stop. He is a master at teaching participants – scared out of their minds — to walk over hot coals by putting “mind over matter.” His magic?

He builds into your neurology a new physiology to change your state of mind. All that dancing on the stage is for a reason. Pumping your fist in the air … yes, that’s intentional too.  From my involvement in a number of his programs, I learned I can change my emotions in an instant by changing my physiology.

Want to feel more passion? Move more rapidly. Speak more rapidly. Model the physiology of the most passionate people you know.

Want to interrupt anxiety or fear? Look up at the sky, smile and say the made up mantra “cool moss.” The latter is just to distract your mind from thinking fear thoughts.

Want to show authority? Stand tall with feet shoulder width apart and weight equally balanced.   Because authority is nonverbally communicated through height and space, the taller you appear and the more room you occupy, the more you look like you are in command. Remember also to own your space as addressed in Unleashing your Leadership Presence.

The work that Tony Robbins has been doing for decades is now backed by science.

According to researchers at Columbia and Harvard Universities, body language symbolizing power can actually affect leadership decision-making. Those who stood in power poses not only felt more powerful and in control. They were 45% more likely to take risks.

Purposefully expand your posture and you will alter your hormone levels – decreasing cortisol and increasing testosterone. A lower cortisol means lower stress. Higher testosterone means higher energy and an improved mood.

Takeaway: One small change in posture can trigger significant changes in how you feel and what you do.

Create instant trust and influence with your body language.

When you look at charismatic leaders, they have one skill in common – the ability to create deep rapport. Rapport is essential for any meaningful communications to take place — whether between a leader and a peer, between a boss and employee, between a leader and the entire organization.

Anything is possible in the presence of rapport.

Nothing is possible without it.

Dr. Milton Erickson

There is no leadership influence or trust without rapport. Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone and sensing disconnection when they did not respond? It’s uncomfortable not to have rapport with someone. Now you can change all that with rapport building skills, as outlined in this article.

First, however, we need to define what rapport IS and IS NOT. Let’s clarify the common myths about rapport.

Rapport IS …

• Deep unconscious connection with another that creates understanding and trust.
• Appreciating (not necessarily agreeing with) another’s perspective.
• Understanding and accepting another’s feelings.
• A form of influence

Rapport IS NOT about …

• Liking someone
• Small talk
• Similar interests
• Accepting what someone says or does. 

The above means that you can have rapport with someone and not even like them. You can have rapport with someone while disagreeing with them. You can have rapport without needing to create small talk.

People in rapport experience a resonance with each other. They adopt the same posture, gestures, head tilt and rate of breathing. When one leans, the other leans too. All of this body language matching is happening below their conscious awareness.

Step 1: Set an intention of win/win.

The first step is to set an intention for a win/win outcome with someone you would like to build rapport.  Because matching and mirroring physiology (or even written communications) is so powerful for building rapport, it should never be used for manipulative reasons.

Step 2: Match physiology.

Pick at lease one aspect of that person’s physiology you would like to match until you sense rapport.

Below are a few options.

• Smile
• Arms or legs crossed
• Siting back or forward
• Source of breath – chest, under the diaphragm or in the belly
• Rate of breath
• Eye contact
• Eye brows raised
• Tilting of head or body
• Sitting slouched or upright

Credit: PA Photos/Landov

By matching someone’s body language, you put yourself in sync with the other person’s behavior and meet them in their model of the world. It’s magical when it happens! 

The secret to successful rapport building is to match and mirror outside the other person’s conscious awareness. When you match someone’s body language, you would not do so simultaneously with the other person. Instead, you would wait till it is your turn to speak and then use a similar gesture or aspect of posture. This way they become aware of your connection on an unconscious level.

Matching and mirroring is not just a physiological phenomenon. When you are in rapport, you activate the same thinking and feeling circuitry – called mirror neurons – in your brain as in the other person. You think similar thoughts. You feel similar feelings. Doing so creates an instant connection and trust.

Step 3: Test your rapport level.

After you have been matching and mirroring for 5 – 10 minutes, check to see if you have rapport with the other person.

To do so, stop matching and intentionally shift some aspect of your physiology — such as, crossing your legs or leaning back in your chair – and notice what happens.

Does the other person’s body language start to mimic yours?

If so, you are in rapport. Once you have successfully matched, you create an environment in which you can lead the other person where you want them to go.

For a leader, that’s power! The possibilities are endless how a leader can use rapport to influence an individual or an entire organization, such as …

• Getting emotional buy-in from employees for your company’s vision.
• Leading change within your organization without resistance.
• Creating alignment with your peers around a common decision
• Relaxing nervous job candidates during an interview
• Introducing a new way of doing things when a person or team has become fixed in their ways.

Takeaway: Matching and mirroring physiology is one of your most powerful, yet under-utilized, leadership tools for creating rapport and trust.  And you can learn it in minutes.

Final comments

Your body language can make or break your leadership influence, emotional state and trust within relationships. While it’s easy to use your physiology to increase your leadership effectiveness, it does take focus, intention and practice.

Decide right now what situations in the coming week – a meeting, performance review, customer negotiation, etc – in which you will use your body language to communicate authority, build rapport or just feel good for no good reason.

Then email me and let me know the outcome.

The post Top Leaders Communicate Authority Through Body Language. appeared first on The Empowered Business.

In 1987, I flew to LA to a women’s leadership conference for one reason only.  To meet Anita Roddick, founder and “then” CEO of multi-billion dollar franchise,

Photo by David Niblack

The Body Shop, and asked her to write the forward of my book (to which she did say yes).

When I met her, I was stunned how amazingly small she was (even smaller than myself J).  Yet her commanding presence was so powerful, 30 years later, that memory is still vivid in my mind.

Leadership presence includes character, charisma and self-confidence YET is much more.  People with large presence actually exert a magnified energy field or aura.  You feel it.  You know it.  You are impacted by it.

The BIG question is … How can YOU develop your own leadership presence?

It all starts within, even before you speak.  Let’s look at the 3 most important how to’s.

Presence Factor 1: Own Your “Space”

I learned about the importance of owning my space from 3 completely unrelated interests — dancing, professional speaking and Qi Gong.

I learned, for example, to own my space as a speaker by claiming the stage as my “home.” Mentally, saying to myself “This is my place. I am home here. I own it.”   It also meant pausing before I spoke … as I stood centered and grounded on the stage … connecting silently with every single person in the audience.   It meant utilizing the entire stage – not just one area – to move and connect with my audience.

Owning your space is not physical nor visual. It is kinesthetic, energetic and spatial. It’s mindset, attitude, personal power and congruent physiology/tonality all wrapped up in one.

Owning your space is absolutely crucial to become a powerful, influential leader. Practice these 2 steps and you are on your way.

• Decide you belong …

whether it is on the dance floor, on the stage, at the head of a conference table or leading an entire nation.   Know you belong. Claim it. Step into it fully.  It’s your space, your place. And no one else’s.

When you own your space, you are letting your organization know that you believe in your value … that your voice and contribution matter.

Are you a leader that owns your space?

Or do you do everything you can to take up as little space as possible?

In your role, do you tend to shrink back from shining? Uncomfortable with attention? Feel insecure about yourself?

Your feelings about yourself and your ownership of space are directly correlated.   The question is: how do you change one or both?

That brings us to the next step for owning your space.

• Clear your space and make it your own.

According to quantum physics, every living creature has an energy field or space. The problem is that you are bombarded continuously by the demands, thoughts and emotions of others to the point that their energy is in your space. That’s right … their energy is in your space. And you are not even aware of it.

Many of the fears you experience are not even yours. They may be your parents’, spouse’s or colleagues’. They may be the media’s fears about the economy or other social ills. Or any other person for that matter.

The solution … you must clear your inner space of other’s “emotional clutter.” Here’s one simple exercise to do so.

Take a few deep breaths. Now simply observe your self-talk, emotions and thoughts. Are you replaying a conversation in your head? Are you feeling resentful because of another’s actions? Are you anxious about any specific area of your life?

Now set an intention to claim your space, mind and thoughts only for you … no one else. It’s time to clear your space. Imagine a giant magnet or vacuum cleaner – bigger than you – clearing out the “garbage” from your space. Give yourself a minute or so to pull out as much as you can.

Notice how much more space and freedom you now experience. Fill your space with an empowering color that signifies who you are and what you want to project to the world.

Guess what? You now own your space. Keep doing the above steps till owning your space becomes a part of who you are.

Presence Factor 2: Get Into Your Zone (aka “flow state”)

 Like it or not, your imagination drives both your leadership successes and failures. 

What you rehearse in your imagination, you tend to get.  If you imagine yourself going on stage and forgetting your lines, guess what? That’s what will happen

If, on the other hand, you see yourself giving a confident, mesmerizing performance (assuming you prepared), you will likely get that.

Mental rehearsal is a process, using your imagination and 5 senses, that puts you into your flow state. Every Olympic athlete uses it. That’s what got Michael Phelps 18 gold medals!

Phelps would lay in bed, eyes closed, and mentally rehearse the entire race. The start, diving into the water, and every detail of every stroke as though it was happening in real-time. He imagined even his warm up routine, possible mishaps and his responses to them, over and over again.

NOTE: Mental rehearsal is NOT the same thing as visualization. There are 2 main distinctions.

The focus of visualization is on the end result – such as, making a certain income. The focus of mental rehearsal is on the experience and execution – such as feeling confident, your movements and gestures, etc.

Visualization just includes the visual sense or images. When I teach mental rehearsal, I want my clients to use at least 3, ideally all 5, senses to have a powerful internalized “memory” of how they want to show up.

To use mental rehearsal to develop your commanding leadership presence, you need to:

Step 1: Describe how you want to perform

Identify a specific situation where you would like to exhibit leadership presence. Describe in detail … what will you see, feel, hear, smell and taste when you experience presence? For example, I am smiling and energetic. I exude confidence yet remain calm and authentic. I notice the audience engaged and present.

Step 2: Mentally rehearse as though watching yourself in a movie

Imagine you are watching yourself on a movie screen. See yourself showing up with presence in a specific situation. Include rich colors and images that are large and close to make real. See yourself acting decisively and without fear. Now include all sounds – eg., your voice exuding authority and background noises in the room. Include all feelings – temperature, mood, your body moving effortlessly. Who else is with you? What are they doing?

Step 3: Mentally rehearse as though you are in the movie

Now step into the image of yourself and run through the scenario again. This time you are seeing, feeling and hearing it as if it is happening NOW. Allow your imagination to create even greater details, more vivid colors, feeling exactly as you want to feel.

Repeat these 3 steps a number of times before your designated event or situation.

Presence Factor 3: Cultivate Your (Life Force) Energy

Knowing how to work with life force energy – yours and others — is key to successful leadership.  According to the book 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership,

“We have found that conscious leaders are masters at managing energy. When they allow energy to flow, they are alive, engaged, passionate, on purpose, creative, innovative, intuitive, clear, visionary, playful, relaxed and refreshed. Energy flow is our natural state, but when it’s blocked or interrupted, the life force so essential to great leadership is dampened, and effectiveness wanes immediately and drastically.”

When you learn how to work with and control your life force energy, your leadership presence, influence and performance will skyrocket. Where you put your mental attention can actually change your physical body and emotional energy. Here’s an exercise to demonstrate that. Do it with a partner.

Cultivating Inner Balance

First, put every ounce of your attention on your right ear lobe. Make sure your thoughts are on nothing else. When there, ask your partner to gently push you on the shoulder from the front. You will discover that the slightest touch will put you off balance.

Next, imagine there is a large golden sphere of energy in your belly area, just below the navel. Now put all your attention on this sphere. (In QiGong, we call this your energy center or dantian.) Once all your attention is there, ask your partner again to push your shoulder. Notice the difference. While the shoulder may move toward the back, you spring right back and don’t lose your balance.

Just 3-5 minutes a day, focusing on a golden sphere of energy in your belly is all you need to cultivate mental, emotional and physical balance, as well as build your life force energy. Even YOU can afford that little time for such a high payoff.

Now It’s Your Turn

The 3 strategies above – owning your space, mentally rehearsing and cultivating your life force energy – will put you on your path to a commanding leadership presence.   These strategies only take a small investment of time and daily practice.

As you increase your presence, you will find yourself closing more deals, wowing your audience and/or employees, achieving your vision and igniting passion in your organization.  Not to mention you will feel happier and at ease within yourself.

MAY PREVIEW:

Want to know the leadership secrets for building a climate of trust with your employees?  Stay tune for part 3 of our article series — How To Unlock Your Leadership Influence Instantly — in May.

Want to learn more about leadership influence?   Check out the following articles.

The post Unleashing Your Leadership Presence … appeared first on The Empowered Business.

As a leader, how often do you find yourself …

• 

  Thinking Behind Strategic Thinking

  Overwhelmed by an overload of demands, not knowing what to respond to first?

• Continually fighting for certainty, paralyzed by fear of the unknown?
• Blind sighted by unforseen events that jeopardize your company’s stability and bottomline?

I’m guessing what you really want is to stop your perpetual busyness.  You want to focus on the critical few.   You want to navigate your company, amidst constant change, to its ultimate destination.

In my decades of working with leaders, I have found that the above are symptoms that a leader lacks the capacity to think strategically.  Let’s look at how to turn those symptoms around.

The 3 Most Important Things You Need to Know About Strategic Thinking:  What It Is AND Is Not

1. Strategic thinking is an exercise of the brain muscle, not the wrist muscle.

Despite what many leaders believe, strategic thinking is NOT quantitative analysis – eg, generating sales forecasts – nor quantitative goals – eg,  $100 million in revenues.

While numbers are important in planning, true strategic thinking is qualitative.  It is about HOW you think as a leader, and less about the contents of your thinking.

 2. Strategic thinking is NOT the same thing as strategic planning.  In fact, many strategic plans have little strategic thinking behind them.

For most companies, strategic planning focuses on breaking down a goal into action steps and connecting those steps to resources, timelines and budgets.

While strategic planning is an important activity for implementation, a plan, without strategic thinking preceding it, has little chance of success.  While strategic planning defines the steps to move up the ladder, strategic thinking (in the words of Covey) defines whether your ladder is against the right wall.

 3. Strategic thinking is more about the structure of one’s thinking, NOT the content of one’s thinking.

While most strategy development efforts focus on content – or what one thinks, strategic thinking is driven by how one thinks – ie., the thinking behind the thinking.   We call this metacognition.

For example, assessing a competitor’s strengths focuses on content.    While the structure of your thinking may view competition at a higher elevation, such as the changing forces in one’s industry and impact on the competitive landscape.

How Great Strategic Thinkers Think:  The 6 Core Characteristics

Essentially, strategic thinking is a mindset.  It is the art of making the right decisions for attaining future success in a complex, uncertain world.   

Although there are many books about strategic thinking, my focus for this article is on the structure of strategic thinking … the Core 6 characteristics.

To uncover a leader’s strategic thinking capacity, I utilize a tool called the Inventory of Workplace Attitude and Motivations (IWAM) to assess a leader’s strength in the Core 6, as well as dominant mental patterns blocking a leader from thinking strategically.

Below are my Core 6 characteristics of strategic thinking.

Global (or Holistic) Thinking

Global or holistic thinking combines the cognitive abilities of:

• Big picture thinking (ie, seeing the overall landscape from a 10,000 foot level … such as your organization or industry. 
• Systems thinking (ie., ability to see the interrelationships between elements … such as, how decisions made in engineering impact other functions)
• Patterns recognition (ie., seeing cause and effect patterns within your environment, peoples’ behaviors and even within yourself  … such as “when I take 5 minutes to plan daily, I have a more productive, focused day.”)

The purpose of holistic thinking is not to accumulate knowledge, but to create new mental maps that unleash greater thinking possibilities for the future.

Example of Holistic Thinking:  Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not invent anything to start Microsoft. The personal computer revolution was started by putting together existing technologies in a way never done before. They could see from a 10,000 foot elevation how seemingly unrelated technology trends intersected, eventually disrupting the computer industry in a completely new direction.

Future Oriented

Strategic thinking leaders view their company’s past and present through the eyes of the future.  Strategic thinking requires strategic foresight and asking such questions as …

• What new emerging trends will shape our company’s future?
• What new possibilities may exist 10 years from now that don’t exist today?
• What unmet needs will our customers have in the future, not even visible on their radar screen today?

Strategic thinking requires a mindset that anticipates rather than reacts.  A strategic minded leader is seeking out opportunities through a “future” lens rather than merely responding to today’s problems and customer needs.

Example of Future-oriented Thinking:  According to Dr. W. Edwards Deming, management expert, the “principle of anticipation and innovation — driven by the producer, not the customer — is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

Henry Ford, a leader with great strategic foresight, understood that principle.  He said if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would’ve asked for a faster horse.

Options Thinking

Options thinking is nothing new.  Our whole lives consist of endless options –  what will we eat for dinner, where will we invest our money and so on. The same is true for organizations.

To achieve strategic success, leaders must develop their options thinking capabilities on two levels:

1. Defining multiple options for reaching goals and choosing the “best”;
2. Identifying a wide range of possible future states (aka environmental scenarios) to uncover and exploit emerging opportunities.

To understand why, imagine, if you picked a random path up a mountain – rather than finding the easiest among multiple alternatives.  Or that you did not consider various conditions in your climb – like snow, dangerous animals or equipment failure.  What would be your chances of success?

In a similar fashion, many strategic plans fail within organizations due to lack of options thinking.

Example of Options Thinking:  In 2006, Mike Jackson, CEO, AutoNation, challenged industry assumptions by asking “what if buyers replaced cars every 5 years, not 3 years?”  By looking at a low probability, high consequence event, AutoNation experienced profitability and positive cash flow, while many dealers went out of business.  That’s the advantage of options-thinking.

Differences–Oriented

When a leader is a high differences-thinking person, it tells me two things:

1.  His/her brain is wired to sort for differences. These leaders are innovators.  They love to change the rules of the game.  Think Steve Jobs as a “high differences-oriented” leader.
2. They thrive on change.  Not only can these individuals respond easily to change.  They can “see” possible changes in the future that others may dismiss or think impossible.

Such leaders have the ability to see and capitalize on hidden opportunities that others don’t have the thinking capacity to spot.

Example of Differences-Thinking:  Billy Beane, General Manager, Oakland A’s, shattered conventional baseball beliefs that big payrolls translate into big wins. His unconventional use of statistics in identifying undervalued players led the A’s — one of the worst teams in baseball with one of the lowest payrolls — to three American League West division titles.  This is hallmark of a differences-oriented thinker.

Achievement/Success Thinking

An achievement-thinking leader is an individual who is motivated by success and by being the best.  Achievement-thinking leaders choose strategies that exploit an advantage. Their only goal is to win.

To develop this thinking muscle, leaders must address fundamental achievement-oriented questions, such as …

• What defines success?
• What are the factors that drive success?
• How will we measure success?

Example of Achievement-Thinking:  Olympic athletes are the quintessence of achievement-oriented thinkers.  Their whole focus is on winning the gold medal.  For many, even a silver or bronze medal is considered failure.  They seek every possible strategy to get the advantage: the choice of a coach, equipment, mastering the fine points of technique, etc.

Proactive Balanced with Reflection

Most leaders by nature are highly proactive and take little time for reflecting.  Yet, to solve the increasing unfamiliar problems facing businesses today, a leader must learn to balance (proactive) action with reflection for new insights to problems with no precedence.

This balance requires leaders to take regular time for reflection and cultivate a sense of right timing for action guided by one’s own intuition.

True reflection is not about thinking hard, but rather a presence of mind.  A state of mind in which you view a situation from not knowing … a beginner’s mind.  (see Strategic Intuition, William Duggan)

Example of Proactive Balanced With Reflection:  Napolean was a master at strategic insight.  What he lacked in size of army, he made up in precision and reaction rate. Napoleon said it best: “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.”

Building your own strategic thinking muscle

A small amount of consistent time and practice is all it takes to build your own strategic thinking muscle.  For example …

1. Learn chess.  It is one of the best ways to develop the strategic thinking characteristics described above.
2. Subscribe to the Futurist magazine published by the World Future Society.
3. Track the BIG, new things the smartest people & organizations (regardless of industry) are doing.  Then adapt them in your company.

If that seems too much now, just remember …

Do less.  Reflect more.

Problems less.  Possibilities more.

“Play not to lose” less.  “Play to win” more.

The post How Great Strategic Thinking Leaders Think. appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Has the obsession to create a happy, engaged workforce gone toxic in your company?

Is over-emphasizing positive thinking in your company’s culture, actually creating negativity without you even knowing it?

Is having 0% employee turnover actually a good thing to sing high praises about, or is it overshadowing another truth?

These are just a few examples of how companies, even with great cultures, can go to the dark side.

The REAL Truth About Your Company Culture & Its Hidden Shadow Side

Most great cultures are driven by handful of sacred values.  They have the clarity, discipline and consistency to make those values deeply embedded into their organizations, often outperforming in growth and profitability by  as much as 150%.

Yet many great cultures have also gone toxic AND the leaders don’t even realize it.  The factors that drive a company’s greatness – when taken to an extreme or at the expense of other factors – can actually become the organization’s hidden “shadow” side.  When that shadow is not brought to light, it can actually lead to the downward spiral or a company’s demise.

A past client company with a strong people-oriented culture – one that I deeply admired when I first started working with them – is one such example.  That strong people culture ignited rapid growth and became their competitive advantage in a high commodity industry.  However, when the recession hit, financial fear took over, its once strong culture went toxic and revenues and profits plummeted.

How is it possible for a great culture, like that, to go to the dark side and not realize it?

7 Blindspots That Can and Will Drive Your Company’s Culture to the Dark Side

Below are 7 blind spots and clues that your organization’s culture – no matter how successful in the past – is possibly headed in the wrong direction.  Be rigorously honest how these blind spots are relevant to your organization.  Otherwise, your company’s future could be in jeopardy.

Blindspot 1:  You fight for your espoused values at all costs, without realizing the unintended consequences on your organization and business results.

Any value taken to an extreme actually becomes a company liability.  A good example is the obsession with positive thinking within organizations.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am in favor of developing a mindset and culture that focuses on positivity, as long as it is authentic.

Yet being in blissful denial of the “real” emotional climate, politics or stress levels within your organization only creates a culture that hides its deepest worries and avoids the cold hard truth that can cost your company dearly.  Excessive positive thinking also results in artificial company behaviors and attitudes, triggering employee resentment, resistance and frustration.

Remember … any value – even the seemingly positive – taken to an extreme in your organization becomes your liability and “shadow” side.

Blindspot 2:  You focus mostly on the overt, tangible aspects of culture, while ignoring the covert drivers of your culture.

A company’s culture consists of overt and covert factors.   Overt factors involve what is tangible and observable – such as, strategic processes and behaviors within an organization.  Overt aspects of culture often utilize the reasoning, intellectual parts of our brain — the dominant focus of today’s leadership teams.

Covert aspects relate to the intangible, unconscious (ie., below your ordinary awareness) assumptions, social, emotional and political patterns, organizational taboos, etc.  Every organization has covert aspects driving its culture – such as, fears, insecurities, friendships, trust, jealousy, ambition and many more.

These hidden aspects of your company’s culture are driven by the emotional parts of our brain – that is, the underlying motivations, beliefs and “actual” values — determining your actual culture.

For example, one of my company clients has a strong “respect” value — an asset in many work relationships.  Taken it to an extreme, however, prevented them from speaking their truth and having honest conversations about critical organizational problems.

Their covert “agreed upon” behaviors for respect were translated into a belief that conflict or disagreement were to be avoided at all costs.  This covert aspect of their culture drove unintended behavioral consequences for which they paid a high price, till we eliminated the unhealthy aspects of this value.

Blindspot 3:  As a leader, you have a strong internal bias how well your culture is doing that does not match reality.

It has been found in behavior-related studies, that human beings think they are better than they really are.  This phenomenon is called in psychology a “self-serving bias.”

The same is true in the world of leadership and culture.  My term for this is “cultural inflation.”  There are many ways this self serving bias can blind you into thinking your culture is doing better than it is.

For example, when a company grows and changes, it is not unusual for its culture to erode at the bottom levels of the organization.   The leadership team is no longer involved lower levels and often becomes oblivious to the atrophy now monopolizing its culture.

Even when a leadership team recognizes issues within their culture, such leaders often don’t see themselves as “part of the problem.”  They don’t recognize that their actual behaviors, decision-making, communications, etc. are a major contributing factor to the dysfunctionality in their culture.

Blindspot 4:  Your strategy and culture are working at cross purposes with each other.

A common issue at a leadership level is not understanding the interplay between strategy and organizational culture.   As a company, you cannot sustain growth, profitability and your competitive edge without harmony and alignment between business strategy and culture.

So many companies fall short in their goals because they overemphasize strategy with little/no attention to the cultural aspects that drive it.  The most ingenious strategy in the world will never come to fruition without creating the right culture to drive it.

Strategy can be imitated by your competitors.  Your unique, well-entrenched culture cannot.

Blindspot 5:  You put too much weight on the strength of your company’s culture, not its fit.

There is the mistaken notion that great company cultures are the byproduct of its strength.  That is, the more entrenched an organization’s core values, the greater the culture.

While there are advantages to strong cultures over weak ones, the danger is assuming that it is the “right” culture, given your organization’s environment. 

The best cultures are those that continuously adapt to succeed in their market and competitive environments.

A manufacturing company in a price competitive environment may do best with an efficiency-based culture.  While a service business may do best with a people-oriented or customer service driven culture.

On the other hand, as your company’s environment experiences disruptive change, your culture must change accordingly to succeed.  When a company’s culture does not fit and/or adapt itself to its own environment, employees will have a hard time knowing how to respond to and serve the needs of its marketplace.

Ignoring the importance of culture fit and adaptability is one of the biggest reasons why great cultures go bad.

Blindspot 6:  Your organization is plagued with double binds, conflicting values and competing demands.

A hidden threat to great cultures are unresolved double binds and conflicting values.  A double bind, by definition, is an unresolved dilemma where the victim feels trapped, no matter the course of action.  That is, the victim deems the situation as lose-lose.

For example, a leader may be put into a double bind situation about the future status of a loyal, although under-performing, employee.  If he/she fires the employee, the leader is giving an unspoken message that loyalty is not valued.  If he/she keeps the employee, the unspoken message is that underperformance is tolerated, which impacts morale and demotivates your best performing employees.

Conflicting values are 2 or more values in conflict – perceived or real — with each other.  That is, either-or thinking. For example, growth driven companies often over-emphasize growth at the expense of other critical  factors, such as profitability.  A company will never be able to sustain growth until the underlying values and assumption conflicts are identified and resolved.

When either double binds or conflicting values go unresolved, the end result is paralysis, a polarized culture, victim thinking and compromised performance.

Blindspot 7:  You fail to assess the health and fit of your current culture and any possible signs of erosion or dysfunctionality … from the outside.

Because so many aspects of a company’s culture exist “below the radar screen,” it’s easy for business leaders to have a skewed perception about the health of their actual company culture.

Or they rely on their own internal assessment of culture which can be just as misleading.  In my experience of assessing company culture, employees rarely tell all for fear of consequences, so the real truth never fully comes out.

What are the alternatives?

• Use an outside culture assessment tested for high validity and significance … AND only use it as a starting point, not the end all.

• Find an outside consultant that can facilitate open-ended interviews and discovery processes to uncover a leadership team’s understanding of culture, its relationship to strategy and how well the two are aligned.  It is also important for the outside expert to observe your “culture in action” in meetings, everyday activities and through casual interaction with employees to uncover your actual culture.

Why such an indepth assessment?  Because company cultures, even the best, can become lulled by their past success and ignore the warning signs of a culture gone bad.  Some of the most once admired companies in history – Enron, Worldcomm and Arthur Andersen just to name a few – have been unfortunate proof that even purported great cultures can go to the dark side.

For low cost tools to assess your actual culture landscape, click here.

The key is not to fear or avoid the shadow or dark side of your company’s culture.  Rather to learn from it. Your culture’s shadow side actually holds the gift of transformation for your organization’s future growth, success and distinctive advantage in the marketplace.

What warning signs or blindspots do you need to heed from your culture’s shadow side?  What will it cost your organization if you don’t?

___________________________________

Denise Corcoran – CEO, The Empowered Business^TM – helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive and sustain profitable growth by design.   Denise can be reached at denise@empoweredbusiness.com or www.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post When Great Company Cultures Go to the Dark Side appeared first on The Empowered Business.

It’s that time of the year!  Most business leaders are preparing for an executive off-site to define their company’s future direction for the new year.

Yet, in my 30 years experience of working with leadership teams and companies, the terms “vision,” “mission” and “values” are THE most overused, misunderstood and abused words in the business community today.

Vision statements, mission statements and strategic plans in many companies reduce to mere academic exercises with no real value in driving an organization forward.  Why?  Let’s take a look.

Why Most Company Visions Get an “F”:  The Big 3

1. Your company’s vision lacks the necessary specificity and inspiration to pull your company forward.That is, your vision lacks intentionality, concreteness and emotional teeth on a gut level in what you really want to achieve and who you need to become in the process.Powerful visions grab and motivate people toward your desired future. Weak visions are meaningless superlatives or vague language that have no energy and fall flat on your organization.  How would you rate your vision?
2. Your vision lacks commitment and “ownership.”There is a big difference between wanting vs. deciding a desired future.One is built on hope and maybe’s. The other is backed by 100% commitment to the outcome.The word decide in its Latin root form means to cut off all other possibilities.  While none of us can guarantee our future, owning your future will make it a reality.  Have you chosen to go the distance, no matter the obstacles?
3. Your vision lacks the necessary leadership capacity and infrastructure to drive that vision into everyday activities.While passion, specificity and commitment are all prerequisites for a successful vision, your leadership and organizational capabilities must be at the necessary level to drive it.In the words of Thoreau, “For things to change, we must change.”   The leader and organization you are today cannot take you to where you want to be tomorrow. This often missed piece is why most companies’ visions fail.

Examples of Poorly Designed Company Visions  —  Can you guess the company?

 Before we address the essential ingredients to a well-designed vision, let’s first look at examples of what not to do.

 Example 1:  “To be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve.”

This vision is generic, lacks specificity, is loaded with meaningless puff words, that it could be any company in the computer industry.

Who is this mystery company?    Dell Computers.

Example 2:  “Undisputed Marketplace Leadership.”

Yes, a well known company has adopted this vision statement to drive its future direction.   While it may sound nice as a tagline, it gets the award for pointless generic buzzwords that really say nothing.  The company?  Hershey.

Both of these visions are sadly bland and generic that they could have been thought of by high school students as a homework exercise for their economics project.  It is not what you would expect from experienced senior leaders of well known companies. 

The “Secret Sauce” to Highly Successful Visions:  7 Essential Ingredients How

A company’s vision is like a beautiful work of art.  It’s personal and it connects with you and everyone in your organization deeply. 

The capability to create such a vision is THE single most important responsibility of a leader and a leadership team. 

For your company’s vision to succeed, however, it requires more than a good feeling.  What you need in addition is:

Secret 1:  A compelling vision that wins the hearts and minds of employees, resulting in buy-in and commitment.

According to the dictionary, the word compelling means urgently requiring attention; arousing interest in an irresistible manner.

Compelling visions move employees to action with a sense of urgency, change their behaviors, give meaning to their work and inspire them to reach new levels in their own potential.

Secret 2:  A clear vision that ignites your senses – ie., a vision you can see, hear and feel – to internalize and make it real.


A clear vision should ignite the imagination.  Generating passion about your company’s vision is a right brain activity, igniting the emotional center of your brain.

Most companies’ visions are defined in intellectual, abstract and/or quantifiable terms   While quantifiable outcomes are important later, they don’t motivate people to action.

In order for your vision to excite employees and pull your company forward, it must be described in clear sensory language.  The question to ask yourself is …

As you imagine your company’s new future, what do you see, hear and feel in your mind’s eye that tells you that new future has been realized?

Secret 3:  A big vision that challenges you to bold heights.

Big, bold goals are actually easier, more fulfilling and a heck more exciting to achieve than small goals.

Yet most business leaders get stuck in small thinking because:

• They lack confidence.
• They focus on today and what’s not working, rather than on the future and what can be.
• They have no experience with big and can’t even imagine how to conceive a big bold vision.
• They are overwhelmed with short term demands at the expense of long term possibilities.

The reasons why big visions are easier?  Because they challenge status quo thinking.  They force you to go beyond your comfort zone.  They stir passions and motivations.  Bold visions also catalyze new creative thinking.  And, most importantly, thinking big actually eliminates impossibilities.

Secret 4:  A shared vision that creates synergies, buy-in and cohesion.


Failed visions are usually created by a few leaders at the top.  A successful vision represents the entire voice of your company.  Your employees want to participate in a bigger cause and be involved in the creation and execution process.

The big challenge for business leaders is to create a vision that incorporates the wants, needs and aspirations of those who will be tasked with achieving it — your employees.  Your company’s vision must articulate … what’s in it for them?

Despite what many leaders think, the collaborative process of envisioning with your employees is more important than the actual vision product.  If you hear your employees saying “That’s my vision too” or at least feel like they influenced it, only then do you have a shared vision. 

Secret 5: A concrete vision aligned with your values and purpose.


Your vision is only one stepping stone to a new future.  Your values are your compass of how to get there.  Your purpose articulates the bigger cause or why your business exist.

While having a vision, purpose and clearly articulated values are the first step, the alignment of these 3 foundational elements is what determines success or failure of your vision.

 As best selling author, Jim Collins, notes: There is a big difference between being an organization with a vision statement and being a truly visionary company.

The difference lies in alignment.  The best use of an executive retreat at this time of the year is to look at alignment issues and your plan for eliminating them.

Secret 6: A concrete vision with “feet.”


Strong visions must also be strategically sound.  They must be concrete, tangible and have a clear proof of success.

When I work with executive teams in formulating their vision, I ask them to address critical strategic questions as part of their vision to give it “feet.”  Such as …

• What obstacles and challenges did your company have to overcome to achieve your vision?  What did you have to do extraordinarily well?
• What “enemies” (external or internal) did you have to defeat along the way?
• What do your competitors now envy the most about you?
• What new boundaries … ie, what you said ‘yes’ and what you said ‘no’ … did you need to have in place?

Secret 7:  A memorable vision that tells a story.

To create a powerful vision, you must articulate it as an unfolding story – both about the destination and the journey.

Why a story, not a statement?  Most visioning and vision statements miss the pathos element, or emotional connection. If I got $5 each time a company’s vision declared becoming the employer of choice or a talent magnet, I would have retired a long time ago :).

Vision stories, however, unite, create trust, are easy to remember and are transformative.  Great vision stories reveal the hero within us all. 

What is the future vision story that your leadership team will write that ignites the energy and the emotion to sustain action  on days even when nothing seems worth it?

Contact me for specific resources to get started on your memorable vision story.

As your leadership team gets ready for 2014, may you get started writing your magnum opus company’s future story.  May your visions allow you and your company to become larger than what you ever thought was possible.  Happy 2014!

___________________________________

Denise Corcoran – CEO, The Empowered Business^TM – helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive and sustain profitable growth by design.   Denise can be reached at denise@empoweredbusiness.com or www.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post Creating a Vision That Pulls Your Company Forward appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Accountable Leader

Today’s most successful companies all have one trait in common.  Their high performance organizations are driven by a strong accountability culture.  Yet despite many companies’ well-intentioned efforts to create strong accountability, leaders still struggle to make it a reality.  Mediocrity, lack of execution and operational breakdowns are hallmarks of poor accountability and an out of control, under-performing organization.

The REAL Truth Why Your Leaders are Struggling with Accountability and Under-performing Teams:

• As a leader, you can’t develop strong results-driven accountability with your team unless you have strong personal accountability with YOURSELF.  This capability is part of self leadership.  You can’t hold others accountable if you don’t take responsibility for your own actions, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, choices and results.  Because employees model what leaders do, a leader’s weak personal accountability perpetuates a cycle of poor  organizational performance.
• As a leader, you lack critical “soft,” people skills — such as addressing interpersonal conflict, and engaging and motivating employees — that drive organizational accountability and performance.
 Employees follow you and are motivated to perform for their reasons, not yours.  For this reason, weak leadership “soft” skills cripple employee engagement and performance and is a costly epidemic in today’s business world.
• Most leaders lack the necessary mindset, capabilities and practices to drive strong accountability – a “must” for high achieving organizations.  Strong accountability starts first with the right mindset.  No performance system, set of metrics or people practices by themselves can make up for a lack of understanding what healthy accountability is and is not.  Lacking the right mindset perpetuates accountability breakdowns and a low performing organization.

The Accountability Mindset Your Leaders and Employees Need Instead to Drive Growth and Profitability

Your mindset is your mental map, cognitive filters and internal glasses that color your view of yourself and the world.   These mental filters drive your thoughts, feelings, motivations, behaviors, communications and, ultimately, results …  without your conscious awareness.

From a leadership standpoint, I call these mental filters your inner leadership game.   As a leader, the most important game you will ever play is the game within your mind. 

Let’s look at the components of your inner leadership game for building strong accountability and a high performance organization.

Grand Purpose/Vision

Often organizations treat accountability as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end. Such organizations narrowly focus on the how of accountability and forget the why. 

Grand Mission

Accountability means more than achieving performance goals.  To motivate your employees to deliver results, accountability requires a profoundly deep understanding why and for whom your employees perform.

Zappos credits its multi-billion dollar success and organizational passion because every employee knows his/her significant role in keeping the Zappos vision alive.

• As a leader, for what grand purpose does your organization exist?  
• To what extent do your employees know that purpose?  
• To what extent are you reinforcing  each employee’s vital role to that purpose?

Values

Values are the qualities and principles you most value.  Your top 3 values drive 90% of our focus, decision-making, time usage, behaviors and outcomes.  If accountability is not amongst those, your attempts will be undermined and lack sustainability.

Important values considerations as a leader for cultivating a strong accountability culture  include:

•  Is accountability an explicit core or operational value for your organization?  is it a top personal value for you?
•  Do you have an agreed upon definition as to what healthy accountability is and what critical behaviors will drive it?
• Are there other values that are perceived by you or your employees as conflicting or competing with accountability in your organization?  If so, how will you resolve that conflict?

If any of the above are not addressed, accountability efforts will suffer.

Beliefs

Beliefs are thought patterns, convictions or judgments about yourself, others and the world around you.  They make up the boundary conditions of your thinking and the parameters of your inner game rule book. 

Most organizations struggle with accountability because of the unconscious negative beliefs their leaders and employees hold about accountability. Those beliefs are often the byproduct  of past negative experiences with accountability during upbringing, with a former employer, etc.  To assess the impact of these beliefs on accountability, ask yourself:

• When you think of  accountability, what associations, emotional reactions or thoughs come up?  Are these associations positive, negative or neutral? 
•  If any negative associations about accountability, how can you redefine it so there is emotional buy-in, organizational alignment and it motivates employees to drive their own results?

This article covered 3 out of the 6 factors of your inner game and its relationship to accountability.  Part 2 will cover the remaining 3 factors: your leadership identity, motivational patterns and emotional state.  Part 3 will cover leadership practices and culture changes critical for a strong accountability organization.

The single most important takeaway is to understand that your inner leadership games drives 90% of your performance and results, including accountability.

If you would like more details about your inner leadership game, I invite you to download a complimentary report:  Wired to Win Big;  7 Inner Game Leadership Strategies for Rising to the Top and Staying There.

Denise Corcoran – CEO, The Empowered Business^TM – helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive and sustain profitable growth by design.   Denise can be reached at denise@empoweredbusiness.com orwww.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post The Accountable Leader: Developing the Right Mindset That Ignite Performance (Part 1) appeared first on The Empowered Business.