No Bull Business Blog

Management and leadership are not the same thing

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level.

Leadership and management go hand in hand, but they aren't the same.

Warren Bennis, one of the nation's foremost authorities on leadership, described the difference between management and leadership best with the following definitions:

• "To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct."
  
• "Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial."
  

Yes, managers have some leadership qualities, and leaders need management skills. But leaders see the big picture and keep an eye on the horizon. Managers focus on what needs to get done at that time with an eye on the bottom line.

Stephen Covey, who has published extensively on leadership, used a ladder scenario to demonstrate the difference between leadership and management in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

"Management is concerned with getting up a ladder in the most effective and most efficient manner. Leadership is making certain the ladder is on the right wall."

To be successful, management and leadership must go hand in hand.

DIGGING DEEPER
Leadership makes the difference in every successful organization. The myth says leaders are born. That's simply not true. Find out more about what it takes to be a great leader in the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level.  

Making the best of a difficult boss

Excerpted from the executive report: Stopping Difficult People from Sucking the Life Out of Your Organization

It won’t always be an underling whose behavior you’re trying to change. In real life, the people who manage us can be difficult, too. If handled with tact, these techniques can be used successfully to address problematic behavior with superiors.

Your approach, how a problem is presented, becomes especially important and can have a big impact on success. A positive approach is almost always the way to go.

Let’s say you have a manager who is throwing you assignments at the last minute and leaving you in the lurch. If it happens all the time, it’s a problem. Your performance will eventually suffer because of it.

Be positive and firm: “Jim, when I get an assignment at the last minute it really puts me in a situation where I have to give up something else or I can’t do as good of a job as I normally would do. Is there some way we can work this out that I can sort of anticipate better when these kinds of assignments are coming?”

Remember, what you’re saying in reverse is: “Hey Jim, you’re an awful planner. Do you know that?” So of course, approach these with caution.

Sometimes the nature of your business won’t allow for better planning, for instance if you work for an emergency ambulance service. But at least, having had the discussion, everyone’s on the same page and there is a better understanding as to why assignments arise at the last minute.

Remember, you can’t fix everything. If you’ve thoroughly examined your own situation and you’ve come to the conclusion that your manager is just a jerk, that’s a lot more difficult. Your first question should be: Is the behavior really causing me a problem?

If it is, then you may be at the point where you have to either ask for a change of assignment or decide maybe this is not where you want to be.

DIGGING DEEPER
Whether it is a superior or a subordinate, dealing with difficult people takes a lot of you - and hurts morale and productivity. This Executive Report can help: Stopping Difficult People from Sucking the Life Out of Your Organization.

Do you recognize this great leader?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level

Leadership is a collection of skills, nearly all of which can be learned and improved upon. But improving leadership skills takes time. It's not something that can be done overnight as this real-life example shows.

At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no prior formal education.

At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. That same year he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

Two years later, he ran for speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At 31, he was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By 35, he had been defeated twice while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress, but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.

At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. At 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential nomination. At 49, he ran for Senate and lost again.

At 51, he was elected the President of the United States of America.

Thus was the life of Abraham Lincoln.

DIGGING DEEPER
Most managers can become great leaders, but they have to work at it. Find out how in the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level

Hold employees to expectations

Excerpted from the Executive Report: 6 Dumb Ways to Kill Employee Morale - And What You Can Do to Fix It

Most people want to do well on the job, regardless of their intrinsic nature and their different behavioral traits. People rarely go into a job with ideas of failing and/or sabotaging the works. As long as they know clearly what's expected of them, they'll try hard to meet those expectations.

Setting clear expectations as to what's expected within a certain timeframe also helps a manager reach a decision quickly to fire when it's not working. One of the worst things an organization can do is to continue to write a paycheck to somebody who everybody else in the organization already knows should not be working there. Whatever managers can do to shorten that decision cycle will be a positive step, for the organization as a whole and for the morale and the productivity of all remaining employees.

Holding on to a bad hire too long is one of the most common dumb mistakes companies and their managers do to kill productivity and morale. It's almost always better to bite the bullet and get through a difficult transition period with the help of all concerned than to leave the underperformer in place until a replacement can be found. The greatest tool managers need to make those decisions quickly is the yardstick of clear expectations by defined time frames.

DIGGING DEEPER
The last thing a good employee wants to do is work next to a bad employee. Taking action early is good management. For help, read the Executive Report: 6 Dumb Ways to Kill Employee Morale - And What You Can Do to Fix It

Dealing with a 'bad attitude'

Excerpted from the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees. 

 

Identifying and correcting behavior often can be more difficult than dealing with performance.

 

Difficult employees are often characterized as having a "bad attitude." Identifying employees that way is a bad starting point for implementing change. What's a "bad attitude"? How is it measured? What standards will you use to determine if it has changed?

 

In short, "attitude" shouldn't be in your supervisor's vocabulary, but "behavior" should. Here's why: You can make behavior a part of performance - with the same types of standards you use for performance.

 

Suppose an employee refuses to cooperate with others or won't follow instructions or argues with customers, or all of the above.

 

That type of employee commonly fends off criticism by saying, "But I do my job."

 

Your answer: "Behavior is a crucial part of your job. So if you can't cooperate, in fact you're not doing your job."

 

To complete the loop, you can make cooperation (with you, other employees, customers, etc) a crucial component of the employee's job description.  Here's a typical statement used in a job description or as a standard laid out during a performance evaluation:

 

Maintain a positive work atmosphere by acting and communicating in a manner so that you get along with customers, co-workers and managers.

 

The greater the importance behavior is to the job, the greater the percentage this standard will apply to the job - whether it's 10%, 25% or 50%. You make the call on it and make sure the employee understands the percentage and the standard.

 

What you'll have done is take the vague "attitude" problem and turn it into something defined and measured. And it gives you a rebuttal to the person who says, "But I do my job."

 

Usually, the person who says that is doing the job at some minimum standard - while driving everyone else crazy. The answer: Raise the standard, to include behavior. Then your response is: "No, you're not doing your job."

 

DIGGING DEEPER

It doesn't require the greatest skills to manage good employees. They have initiative, jump in where needed and don't need someone looking over their shoulder. The people who are a drain on the workplace are the difficult employees. To get help with them, read the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees.

10 mistakes new rookie managers make

Excerpted from the Executive Report - Motivating Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know

Managing is hard work – motivation is even more difficult.

Many managers and supervisors were promoted into their jobs simply because they were the best at performing a set of specific tasks among a team of people.

However, becoming a manager requires different skills, skills that the recently promoted employee may never have been trained to do.

No wonder so many mistakes are made.

Here are 10 typical mistakes made by first-time supervisors:

1. They persist in still doing their old jobs, rather than their new ones. As a result, they don’t delegate; they burn themselves out while the people who report to them can’t grow and thus feel unmotivated.
2. Out of a sense of insecurity, they sometimes view smart new people as competition, rather than assets. As a result, this de-motivates the people who could well represent their best hope for making the team a success.
3. They can be so afraid of making a mistake that they make no decision at all. By their indecisiveness, they lose the respect of their people – and with the loss of respect comes the loss of any chance to motivate people.
4. They fail to consider the consequences of their promotion on their former relationships with teammates. You can’t be best friend with a subordinate.
5. As a result of these factors, new managers play favorites based on former friendships. That destroys the morale and motivation of everyone else.
6. They see themselves as crusaders. They represent their people against the company, which is bound to end in disaster – or the other way around, which is guaranteed to turn everyone into an enemy unmotivated to perform.
7. When pressured to act unethically, they’re afraid to take a stand and do the right thing. Loss of integrity in the eyes of the workers will inevitably result in de-motivation.
8. They fail to adequately communicate laterally other managers, as well as up to their bosses and down to their own team. To be properly motivated, people can’t be kept in the dark like mushrooms.
9. They fail to reach out for help, thinking they have to be all-knowing. Admitting one doesn’t have all the answers can be an important factor in gaining respect.
10. They’re either too direct or too indirect in their dealings with their subordinates. They have a hard time finding a middle ground.

DIGGING DEEPER
Getting the most from your staff is critical. It's hard to achieve high productivity if employees aren't motivated. To find out what you can do, you invited to check out the Executive Report - Motivating Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.

No one ever changed the oil in a rented car

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating

You don't always have the power, authority or means to reward people the way you'd like or give them the growth they desire. Now what?

Realize that there's almost always something you can do to provide an incentive. It may not be a pay raise, but it might be:

• a small bonus
• more time off to spend with the family
• training and learning opportunities, or
• an incentive tied to the company's financial performance.

And you can modify and adjust incentives based on your knowledge of the employee involved.

Just as some people like opera while others like baseball, so can incentives be adjusted to target an employee's likes.

So, while your authority to award incentives is limited, your imagination is not.

Another incentive for successful delegation is to give the subordinate a sense of ownership of the task - a reason to be invested in its success. As the adage goes, "No one ever changed the oil in a rented car."

If you don't own a project, why would you care?

The sense of ownership ties in with other incentives - a bonus, a chance to move up, more independence. There's a difference, however:

While you might offer an incentive for taking on the delegated task, you might also offer an incentive for any successes that result from the person's taking it on.

Again, what you offer may be limited by your budget and authority. Still, almost all of us can come up with a reward for success.

DIGGING DEEPER
The ability to delegate is what turns good managers into great managers. Learn how to do it the right way by reading the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating

Deciding when and what to delegate

Excerpted from read  Executive Report: The 7 Essential Steps to Delegating Successfully

Delegating can provide a manager with many advantages. That doesn't mean it's wise to delegate just anything anytime. When done randomly and without thinking it through, delegation can be a disaster.

So, first, be sure to determine when delegation is the best course of action. To do that, start by asking five key questions:

1. Is there someone else who I believe has what it takes - background, expertise, information, etc. - to do the job? Absent that, is there someone I can get up to speed quickly to take over the job?
2. Does the task provide an opportunity to grow and develop another person's skills, or am I just foisting off an unpleasant task on someone else?
3. Is this a task that that's likely to come up again, so that if I invest time in someone, I'll get multiple payoffs?
4. Do I have enough time to delegate the job effectively? If there's no time for training, feedback and, yes, an occasional redo, I may be asking for trouble.
5. Is this a task that I should delegate? Let your instincts decide which responsibilities must stay under your control.

Other factors to take into consideration:

• How crucial are deadlines? What are the consequences of not completing the job on time?
• Is "good" good enough? In other words, could you get by with slightly lower quality for the sake of delegation? If not, you'll have to have full confidence in the person to deliver at the highest level.
• What are the consequences of failure? Handing over the job could increase that possibility. No one accepts failure, but you have to accept the possibility and be prepared to deal with it.

DIGGING DEEPER

Delegating is key to becoming a great manager. To get more help, read the Executive Report: The 7 Essential Steps to Delegating Successfully

Keeping the good employees that you hire

Excerpted from Why Good People Jump Ship - and What You Can Do to Stop Them:

Understanding and clarifying expectations is key to keeping good people. It should start at the time a prospective employee is first interviewed.

During that initial interview, the candidate should get a detailed description of the job, the work schedule and the type of environment the person can anticipate.

Job priorities, accountability and potential for growth and advancement should also be discussed.
Once a candidate is hired, it’s important to provide this information again in various forms, such as during an introductory meeting with a manager and a handful of co-workers.

A “welcome” packet, employee manual and other printed material is helpful to reinforce some of these expectations.

Whether an employee is brand new or a veteran, managers must strive to create an environment where questions are welcomed. Good people need to know they can always ask a manager to clarify expectations.

When good people are asking questions about expectations, it means they are concerned about getting results, too. If a manager doesn’t hear anything, it doesn’t mean things are rosy. And by the time you do hear the news, it may be too late to fix.

Practice communicating expectations early and often, and relating how those expectations fit into overall organizational goals.

Remember: Good people want to feel they are a part of something special – and “special” things are worth talking about!

DIGGING DEEPER
Keeping good people isn't an accident. It takes good managers who know how to create an environment that employees see challenging. For more help, check out the Executive Report: Why Good People Jump Ship - and What You Can Do to Stop Them.

Turn negative employees into positive ones

Excerpted from the executive report Handling Difficult Conversations with Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.

Conversations – especially those dealing with emotional issues – rarely follow a logical pattern or system. Every conversation is a little different.

You can’t shoe-horn a conversation into a pattern or system. What you can do, however, is develop a method for getting the other person’s feedback and moving toward a desired result. This five-part conversation method and system has worked for many managers when they’re seeking a change in behavior or performance. A step-by-step example of dealing with someone who’s always negative and critical of others’ ideas:

1. ‘When you ... I feel ...” You can use this to set up the problem: “When you say, ‘That’s a dumb idea,’ I feel as if you’re being disrespectful to the person who offered the idea, and you discourage others from speaking up.”

2. Wait for their input. This is one of those points when your silence can be golden and when you can put into practice one of the “don’ts” we described earlier – “Don’t feel as if you have to fill every silence.”

Let your “When you” sentence hang and wait for a response. And here’s where it gets a little tricky, because you can’t be certain of the response.

The person may deny it, in which case you’ll have to give examples: “I can describe at least three times in the last week ...” Or the person may say, sincerely, “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

Sometimes, too, the person will offer an excuse – valid or invalid. For instance, the response may be, “I’ve been losing a lot of sleep because of migraine headaches, so that may account for some of it.”

If you believe the excuse is valid, take steps to help or accommodate the employee. That’s what supervisors are supposed to do. Even if you do that, you still can move on to the next step.

3. “I would like ...” Here’s where you describe, specifically, the change in behavior you’d like to see: “I would like you to come to the next meeting with at least three ideas of your own on how we can improve.”

That sets the standard and results in positive terms: “This is what I want you to do.” Instead of “This is what I want you to stop doing.”

Consider how that works in any number of conversations involving performance or behavior. For instance, the person who’s always
coming in late.

Negative: “I would like you to stop coming in late.”

Positive: “I would like you to be on time every day.”

4. “Because ...” In almost any situation, you have to provide a reason for requesting change (other than “because I said so”).

Again, try to stay positive: “Because I know you have a lot of good ideas, and I think we’d all benefit from hearing them.”

That beats the negative attack mode: “Because we’re tired of hearing your criticisms.”

5. “What do you think?” You’re asking straight-out for feedback here, and you’re doing so with more than one purpose:

• You don’t want the person to walk away with the feeling that he or she has been given some iron-fisted orders.
• You can move toward a commitment from the person to change.
• You’ll get a real feel about whether the conversation worked and you’re headed toward a desired goal.

Try this system the next time you’re in a difficult conversation, and see how it helps to get you where you want to go.

DIGGING DEEPER
Every manager has at least one negative personality on the staff. Who do you deal with those folks? For help, check out the executive report: Handling Difficult Conversations with Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.

3 questions that will boost motivation - and business

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Why Good People Jump Ship

Involved employees are motivated employees. So how do you make sure they're involved? Ask employees these three questions and you can boost morale and business:

1. Can you tell me our top three goals for this year? (To analyze the level of engagement, people need to be on the same page.)
2. If you were competing against our company, what would you do? (Managers are often surprised to learn that employees know right where the weaknesses are.)
3. What is currently impossible to do that if it were possible would change everything? (This forces people to think is there something different we can do? What drives us crazy and how can we fix it?)

DIGGING DEEPER
Making sure your best people stay is key to boosting business. To get help doing that, read the Executive Report: Why Good People Jump Ship - and What You Can Do to Keep Them

Seven things not to say

Excerpt from the Executive Report: Document, Document, Document - What Every Manager Needs to Know About Tracking Performance and Problems

Good documentation lists specific events and examples, clearly identifying issues that need to be addressed. So some words and phrases weaken good documentation because they're either too vague or too hard to prove.

Avoid using these seven when documenting performance or problems:

1. Perhaps
2. Possibly
3. I think
4. Never
5. Every time
6. Always
7. It seems

DIGGING DEEPER
Documenting employee performance or problems is key to being a good manager. To do it the right way, read the Executive Report: Document, Document, Document - What Every Manager Needs to Know About Tracking Performance and Problems

Are you stressing out your employees?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Why Good People Burn Out – and How You Can Stop It

As much as you and your employees don't want to suffer from stress and burnout, you could be the "cause" of the stress. Here are some things to watch out for:

• Setting unrealistic goals. Imposing highly ambitious goals on employees will daunt and discourage, rather than motivate, them. If you have tough goals they must achieve, break them into smaller parts before presenting them.
• Looking at the dark side. If you always look at the downside or harp on what's wrong - and allow others to do it - you can bet employees will become de-motivated and stressed. Instead, mention the bright side of every tough circumstance you and your people face. Encourage employees to suggest changes for things they don't like.
• Us vs. them talk. Managers often don't want employees angry at them, so they unintentionally remove themselves from potential guilt. (For instance, "I fought for your pay raise, but you know HR makes the final decision.") Leaders need to stand behind decisions they've made or have been made regarding their employees.
• Allowing some people to slide. Managers who let poor performers get by or allow bad behavior to continue will derail good employees. Confront those issues until they're fixed or gone.
• Talking more than you listen. Whether you deliver bad news or offer an opposing opinion, your employees will want to vent about it. Let them, because that may be all they need to get over it.
• Jumping to conclusions. One person rarely knows how another person feels, so avoid telling employees how they should react or feel in any situation. Let them react and then talk about solutions.
• Poor listening. Nothing is more irritating than not being heard. Paraphrase, take notes or do anything to show employees you care.
• Reacting to anger or anxiety. This only adds fuel to the fire. Instead, keep an even tone and deal with similar situations uniformly.
• Bad habits. Ask a trusted colleague (or loved one), what habits you have that can get on people's nerves.

DIGGING DEEPER

So, are your employees stressed out? Find out what you can do by reading the Executive Report: Why Good People Burn Out – and How You Can Stop It.

Touting your rising stars

Excerpted from the Executive Report 9 Mistakes New Managers Make Most Often

Whenever there is any question as to who gets credit for an accomplishment, pass the credit to the employees.

Why? It's good for managers to develop a reputation of helping rising stars.

In an essay titled How to Manage Smart People, business consultant Scott Berkun makes an amazingly simple and telling finding:

"A manager who treats his reports as cogs in a wheel is guaranteed to get the performance of a cog in a wheel. But a manager that develops and grows people into new strengths and abilities will always get more out of the team."

Cogs in the wheel are just fine if the task is simple and straightforward, and the wheel never needs greasing or changes direction.

But that's not how most of our businesses really run.

Today's managers are challenged with an array of ever-changing tasks, most of which must be performed under the "do more with less" scenario.

Smart, talented employees make the job easier. And touting their accomplishments to others not only motivates the employee, but enhances the manager's reputation as someone who knows how to develop people.

DIGGING DEEPER
The hardest thing to do in business is manage people. Great managers are worth their weight in gold. So how do we turn new managers in to great managers? For help, take a look at the Executive Report 9 Mistakes New Managers Make Most Often

The dangers of Facebook, Twitter, blogging in the workplace

Excerpted from the Executive Report - Facebook, Twitter and Your Employees: The Dangers of Social Networking

Employees are flocking to social network sites. Every organization needs to have a written policy on use of social networking sites by employees - for the good of both employees and the company.

A recent Harris Interactive survey found that just under half (48%) of U.S. adults have either a MySpace or Facebook account.

Usage statistics are much lower for Twitter, with only 5% of Americans saying they currently use it. But that number doesn't tell the whole story.

Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year as of February 2009, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the U.S. for the month.

As you might expect, there are substantial differences in who is and who isn't using these selected social networking sites:

• Three-fourths of those ages 18-34 (74%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, but this quickly drops off the older people get. Just under
• one-quarter (24%) of those ages 55+ have an account.
• Tweeting's also more common among the young, but not by much; only 8% of 18-34-year-olds use Twitter, while 7% of those ages 35-44 use it, 4% of those ages 45-54 and only 1% of those ages 55+ use it.
• While men and women use Twitter at the same levels (5% each), women are more likely to have a Facebook/MySpace account (52% vs. 45%).
• There's also an educational difference in usage of MySpace and Facebook. Two in five people with a high school degree or less (40%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, compared with 55% of those with some college and 52% of those with at least a college degree.

DIGGING DEEPER
To protect your company and employees, it's smart to have a policy to explains what's acceptable and what's not. To find out more, get the Executive Report - Facebook, Twitter and Your Employees: The Dangers of Social Networking