Developing Leadership Skills: What Do Great Leaders Have in Common? Two groups of authors and researchers have recently tried their hand at identifying what exactly makes for great leadership skills: Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (who wrote The Leadership Challenge), and Michael Jensen, Werner Erhard, Steve Zaffron, and Kari Granger

Influence: Improving Morale in the Workplace Influence is the amount of effect you have on someone’s character, development, or behavior. Every action–even small ones–can carry a great deal of positive influence in the workplace. Let’s say an employee shows up late for a meeting and no one says anything about

How many times a year do you hear a story about a low-performing person who cannot be switched or removed from your department (or from the organization) because the paperwork hasn’t been done? Or because obligatory conversations have yet to take place? Or because what that person has done might

Thinking Fast as an Entrepreneur Entrepreneurial leaders are open-minded, energetic, and always questioning. They ask: How can we do it better? Where should we go from here? What is preventing us from taking action, and how can it be overcome? Couldn’t we do this and that? These questions lead to

The right word may be effective, but no word is ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.– Mark Twain   Pausing is undervalued and underutilized by leaders. There’s a tendency when someone asks us a question to enter a “me” mindset. “Now it’s my turn,” our brains tend to

The success you have is likely despite these obstacles to leadership not because of them – that is simply a rationality that helps craft your blind spots.

Everyone in the organization need not be friends, and disagreements should, in fact, be encouraged (to improve decision-making), but the culture should be friendly and open. People should feel encouraged to lead and to help define the organization. When people feel encouraged to belong, they will contribute like they do.

“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” ― Santosh Kalwar, Quote Me Everyday You make a vow not to eat sugar. A few minutes pass. Still, no. And then an hour. That is a definitive no! That is an absolute I

Many leaders are moving so fast and furious that they do not take time to appreciate the moment. Appreciating the moment of significance is important.

Many leaders are moving so fast and furious that they do not take time to appreciate the moment. Appreciating the moment of significance is important.

Brain Dominance You are shaped by conclusions based on your past experience and learned behaviors. Think of how many of those are not explicit but implicit learnings. Many of the things you have learned were drawn from turning your head for a moment and suddenly you had a new belief

Breaking Mental Barriers is a great challenge for you as a leader. Discover two amazing questions that will make it simple.

Rethinking Leadership Infographic was developed by Sammi Cohen. To develop your own infographic, reach out to Sammi Cohen. Rethinking Leadership In working with leaders, I have found asking questions is a sorely undervalued technique. Many equate asking questions with losing power, looking like a fool, or admitting defeat. Some believe that

Rethinking Leadership Infographic was developed by Sammi Cohen. To develop your own infographic, reach out to Sammi Cohen. Rethinking Leadership In working with leaders, I have found asking questions is a sorely undervalued technique. Many equate asking questions with losing power, looking like a fool, or admitting defeat. Some believe that

Focusing, by definition, will narrow your field of vision. That’s great…if you are on the right path. Not so great if you and your team are trying to solve the wrong problem. How do you and your team keep yourself open not only to new solutions, but also to new

Focusing, by definition, will narrow your field of vision. That’s great…if you are on the right path. Not so great if you and your team are trying to solve the wrong problem. How do you and your team keep yourself open not only to new solutions, but also to new

Focus I am an avid photographer, and when taking pictures I am focused on focus. Without focus, the shot is a bust. What do I want in focus? and What do I want out of focus? are questions I ask. A wide aperture provides minimal depth of field (only a small portion

The Entrepreneurial Guide to Success Joe Powers is the owner of the Canadian Honker, an unassuming “comfort food” restaurant in Rochester, MN. The restaurant is located directly across the street from St. Marys Hospital, part of the world famous Mayo Clinic. Heads of state, Fortune 100 executives, and media personalities

The Entrepreneurial Guide to Success Joe Powers is the owner of the Canadian Honker, an unassuming “comfort food” restaurant in Rochester, MN. The restaurant is located directly across the street from St. Marys Hospital, part of the world famous Mayo Clinic. Heads of state, Fortune 100 executives, and media personalities

We don’t often consider the way decision making is driven by energy: anabolic (positive) and catabolic (negative).

We experience two forms of energy (anabolic and catabolic) in our work and personal lives. How best can we use those forms of energy to perform?

One of the most used habits of successful leaders is asking questions. And the exceptional leaders know what questions to ask and when to ask them.

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #11–Focus A FranklinCovey study on goals revealed the following: 1. If you have 2-3 primary goals, you will most likely accomplish 2-3 of them. 2. If you have 3-10 primary goals, you will most likely accomplish 1 or 2 of them. 3. If you have more

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #10–Get 360° Feedback We have touched on using criticism to the best of your ability and improving your reaction to criticism. Sometimes it’s important to seek out criticism–and not just from the same old sources. If you’re serious about improving your self-awareness and Emotional Intelligence, get

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #9–Learn From Criticism You can’t learn from criticism, and you’re not likely to receive constructive criticism from colleagues in the future, if you react defensively. When you’re criticized, don’t return fire immediately. Use your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to remain calm and try to understand both the

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #8–Encourage Dissent During a period in the late 1990’s, Korean Air had more plane crashes than any other airline in the world.  Yet, their pilots (and co-pilots) were impeccably trained.  So, why the rash of crashes? Ultimately it was determined that a culture that didn’t honor dissent, but

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #7–Engage Your Audience Words often stand alone. But words are usually more compelling when they’re spoken aloud and accompanied by something that engages the audience visually–whether it be graphs, pictures, or simply hand gestures and physical expressions. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King in his

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #6–Own up to Mistakes Leaders are not expected to not make mistakes. Nobody is. And, yet, mistakes happen. While we can’t completely prevent mistakes from happening, we can learn from them and learn how to limit them. The first step in the learning process is a

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #5–Create Change  “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” –Mahatma Gandhi I had a very successful businessman tell me once that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.  Creating change is not easy, it is not quick,

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #4–Show up and Follow Through “80% of success in life is just showing up.”–Woody Allen We all know that just showing up isn’t enough–and never was. You need to show up and perform once you’re there. I think Thomas Edison’s ratio for success is far more

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #3–Give Others an Opportunity to Shine This is, singularly, the most important concept that I learned during my 15+ years as an active duty Air Force officer. As a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant at my first duty station, I was put in charge of a group

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #3–Give Others an Opportunity to Shine This is, singularly, the most important concept that I learned during my 15+ years as an active duty Air Force officer. As a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant at my first duty station, I was put in charge of a group

Becoming a Leader:  Challenge #2–Maintaining confidence during setbacks Don’t confuse setbacks with failures–and, by all means, don’t confuse setbacks with you being a failure. When you have a setback, take a step back. Learn from what went wrong, assess other perspectives, and recommit to yourself. In Seven Habits of Highly

Leadership Goals are accomplished by great leaders by using the process known as GPSing. You must first begin by asking goal questions, then position Q.

In this series of posts, we will examine how Latin maxims can provide today’s leaders with new insights.  A maxim is defined by the Free Dictionary as “a succinct formulation of a fundamental principle, general truth, or rule of conduct.” The first of the Latin Maxims Bis dat qui cito

Employee Engagement, Leadership, and Business Results are highly correlated–according to Gallup research done by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, authors of First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. Buckingham and Coffman came up with twelve questions that help determine the degree of employee engagement. How

Sense of urgency declines as organizations grow A sense of urgency is often lost as an organization comes to scale. The more the bureaucracy grows, the harder it is for the organization to keep moving forward fast. A syrupy molasses coats the gears. As a leader, you wake up every

Leadership Efficiency can be costly to the sustainability of an organization. When you strive for efficiency you can lose your sense of purpose.

A common theme from both Cohen and Adams is to ask questions. Questions, and only questions, can help you overcome limiting beliefs, false or misleading assumptions, and keep you off of the JUDGER path.

When you ask questions you must go from JUDGER to LEARNER in order to effectively get the outcomes you are looking for from yourself and others.

Marilee Adams, MSW, Ph.D. offers 10 very powerful tools to improve communication–both personally and professionally by how you ask questions.

Lead by how you Ask Questions CO2 Partners founder Gary Cohen is not alone in his remarkable approach to leadership: ask questions to build alignment, engagement and accountability. In this series of posts, I am discussing “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” by Marilee Adams, MSW, Ph.D. She offers 10 very

10 powerful tools that will improve how you Ask Questions that will improve communication both personally and professionally. Gary Cohen & Marilee Adams deliver Questioning Skills.

Leaders who want to see far into the future, look first into the past. Is this a habit that needs nurturing?

Building your personal network is only half the story. Learn the other half of how to keep that network alive.

Kurt Hahn was the founder of Outward Bound. I and many 100,000s of past participants of the Outward Bound program owe a great deal to a man that we have never met. I went when I was 16 years old to Hurricane Island in Maine. It changed my life forever.

The people who burn the brightest can burn out. Are you a high performer who is no longer performing at a high level? Instead of showing up at work at 6 or 7 a.m. after a good workout, are you showing up between 9 and 10 without having exercised? Do you feel filled

Judgment Day vs. Making Judgments All Day Regardless of your religious beliefs, you likely associate “judgment day” with a processing of a life’s worth of action and information. And yet, we tend to make judgments all day without hardly any information at all. Dictionary.com defines “judgment” as “the ability to

You Can’t Steer a Parked Car You can’t turn the wheels much when a car is parked. When a car is moving, even just a little bit, the wheels are much easier to turn. Try it the next time you get in the car.  And so what does this have

Dig your well before you’re thirsty. Harvey Mackay coined that phrase in his best-selling book by the same title. He also taught us how to swim with the sharks without getting eaten alive. But that is a lesson for a later blog post. Are you connected to people on LinkedIn?

When do assumptions turn into limiting beliefs? An assumption is something that we take for granted–a foregone conclusion, if you will. Life experience and past knowledge of an outcome lead us to make assumptions. We assume that if “A” happens then “B” will occur; it has to because it has

What are your inner critics saying and why? We all have little voices inside our heads. In general, they want to keep us safe and sound. They don’t want us to be embarrassed, feel rejection, or be uncomfortable. To protect us, however, they operate as inner critics. They tell us

To develop your leadership capability focus on all of the three areas Leadership of Self, leadership of others, and leadership of performance.

4 Tips for Working with Search Firms There are two type of search firms: retained and non-retained. Non-retained firms work primarily for themselves and not for job candidates or employers. Retained firms represent employers looking to make a hire. Both types of search firms are trying to match job candidates

Limiting Beliefs: How are you programmed to fail? What limiting beliefs do you have that suppress your capacity grow and succeed?  These are hurdles that you place and only you can remove.  Typically, a limiting belief will contain some sort of negative word like never, can’t, impossible, and don’t.  Let’s look at

Limiting Beliefs: How are you programmed to fail? What limiting beliefs do you have that suppress your capacity grow and succeed?  These are hurdles that you place and only you can remove.  Typically, a limiting belief will contain some sort of negative word like never, can’t, impossible, and don’t.  Let’s look at

What Is Your Personal Brand? You may not like to think of yourself as a brand, but you are one. Most people think of you as the X Person or the Y Specialist. If they don’t…well, that’s a problem. If people don’t associate you with something distinct and valuable, then

Four Goal-Setting Questions Here are four critical goal-setting questions to ask:               What do you want?               When do you want it?               What are you willing to give up getting it? Yes, I know that is only three questions, and no I don’t have a problem with math. But

Be Informed about Informational Interviews: 4 Key Tips The purpose of an informational interview is to get information about a field of work from someone who has firsthand knowledge. Seems simple enough. Unfortunately, some people approach informational interviews as informal interviews and don’t do enough advance preparation. Here are four

How much Klout do you have? Klout measures your level of influence online. To increase your Klout score, you must drive action online (by getting lots of “likes” and comments on Facebook and LinkedIn, retweets on Twitter and reshares on Google+, for instance). Just generating online content isn’t enough; people

Reptilian Brain We still have vestiges of our reptilian brains, pushing us toward either fight or flight, but human brains have evolved. The neocortex stores a vast amount of sensory data: sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes. A simple algorithm tells us whether we have encountered a similar stimulus pattern

Put Facebook to Work You may not care about how closely tied others’ personal and work lives have become. You may not judge others’ personal choices. But you can’t control how others may judge you. Whether you like it or not, people are going to judge you based upon your

Boost Your Savvy via LinkedIn Leaders and job hunters are judged by their savvy, and LinkedIn profiles are a pretty good indicator of savvy. How does your LinkedIn profile look? Prospective employers will check out your LinkedIn profile and connections. They want to see your circle of influence, since your

Work to Do Before You Network The informational interviews I’ve given typically fall into two categories: 1. The job hunter arrives relatively unprepared and asks questions that arise through the natural course of conversation. He wants to know about the type of work I do and if I have any

Both your résumé and your bio should tell a story–one with a beginning, middle, and an end. Where did you come from, where are you now, and where do you want to go? Many HR reps spend two minutes or less per application, so your story must be compelling and

Creating a Personal Marketing Plan A personal marketing plan isn’t a bio or a résumé, though it draws from the same well. A personal marketing plan demonstrates how your unique skills and talents would be ideal for a specific position (or two) in a particular organization/market.  A personal marketing plan

Had a great time being interviewed on Power Talk Radio show hosted by Linda Ballesteros with Gary B Cohen and Greg Glander. Listen to internet radio with Tough Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio

Assess Your Leadership Style At CO2 Partners, we encourage leaders looking for a new position or a new career to listen to their inner voice, know their mindset, rank their core values, and discover their strengths. Then it’s time to and assess and fine tune their leadership style. As executive

Discover Your Perfect Career After meeting hundreds of executives over the years and helping them on their career paths to a new position or a new career, I have assembled a set of tools and resources that may help you on your path. Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Journey” is a

We like people like ourselves–people who do and think about and value similar things. I remember reading a long time ago that a dentist in India often has more in common with a dentist in the United States than they do with either of their neighbors. At first I wondered

Criticism and blame can quickly destroy a culture. In this post discover how this behavior leads to a vicious cycle that kills productivity and employee engagement.

Creating a culture of appreciation will dramatically lift employee engagement within your organization. In this article you will learn how to use HAPPS to effectively elevate your team and organization to new levels of performance.

As a leader, you’re accustomed to stretching and stretch assignments, since leaders handle a wide array of responsibilities and have to respond to unexpected challenges. You may not, however, stretch your team members the way you yourself were tested on your rise to your current leadership position. Think of the

‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ it is said. When you think of creativity, you often think of ways to promote it! This post looks at the many ways that your organizations culture can prevent it from ever happening.

JAMSHED BHARUCHA, Professor of Psychology, Provost, Senior Vice President, Tufts University explains how to stretch your mind in education. He used to believe that a paramount purpose of a liberal education was threefold: 1) Stretch your mind, reach beyond your preconceptions; learn to think of things in ways you have

You can stumble on your next career or be deliberate about choosing one. This post explores how you can elevate your game and learn what career insights you may be withholding from friends and loved ones?

14 Fascinating Theories from Leadership Studies Posted on Tuesday April 10, 2012by Staff Writers at BestCollegesOnline.com If you’ve never delved into the field of leadership studies as a businessperson or college student, you really should. There are dozens of fascinating theories from the field that can help you become a better leader

Creating a strategic plan is quite an undertaking for a business. Not only are you often hiring outside firms for facilitating the process but you are using an enormous amount of internal resources for gathering data converting it to meaningful information and sorting that data over 3 to 5 days

As a leader, do you read and respond to e-mail as much as you used to? Or are you starting to tune out? Over a year ago, Aditya Kothadiya posited that personal e-mail has become more of a notification medium and less of a communication medium. His argument looks even stronger

CMOE

CMOE

This is a terrific video describing leadership by XPLANE made in collaboration with Harvard Business School. Nitin Nohria and Amanda Pepper of Harvard Business School’s Leadership Initiative collaborated with XPLANE to create this video in order to generate a discussion of the value and importance of leadership to address some

This is an amazing look at the future. Imagine the possibilities….

How to prepare for a meeting For leaders who want to hold successful meetings–rather than feel held up or held hostage by them–here are eight steps to take: 1) Get chapter and verse on all attendees. Review their recent activity on web sites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. Know your

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” —Bertrand Russe “It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”  —Thomas Pain “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”  —Francis Bacon “The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrate I keep six honest

by Leo Tolstoy I An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking, the elder began to boast of the advantages of

by Ursula K. Le Guin With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between

As organizations grow larger and more complex, leaders are often surprised by the unintended consequences of their decisions. Leaders can’t anticipate everything. They must make the best decisions they can with the information they have. But they also should anticipate unintended consequences and be prepared to reassess changes they’ve implemented.

Asking questions in business often brings to mind the Socratic Method. This is great for teaching but it may get you in hot water as a leader.

Award winning author and leadership expert, Jeff Appelquist. Jeff will be speaking to an emerging leaders group on December 6th about how the lessons from our history can inform our practice of leadership. Jeff is the author of two highly acclaimed books: Sacred Ground: Leadership Lessons from Gettysburg and Little

When you build a successful company, department, NGO, or team, you build upon successes. It’s tricky to reproduce success, however, because many decisions were both context- and time-bound. Had you made those same decisions with different people, in different circumstances, or at another time period in the growth of your

Click to hear: ASTD TCC Podcast Gary Cohen Interview Company leaders today face new and increasingly complex problems. Most of these problems are intractable, if not, in the end, problems without real, lasting solutions. It is an extremely frustrating situation for today’s leaders, who are accustomed to finding answers and

An interview with Nicholas Kralev, author of Decoding Air Travel: A Guide to Saving on Airfare and Flying in Luxury Interview by John LeTourneau, Executive Coach, CO2 Partners About the Author: Nicholas Kralev is a writer, educator, and speaker on global travel, diplomacy, and international affairs. A former Financial Times

When I ask leaders where they are most productive, they often say on the plane. They enjoy being unplugged for several hours, and they get more done.  Avoid using wifi on planes if you can. And if you’re not on a plane, imagine you are for the next few hours.

Sometimes not feeling like you belong has more to do with you than with the others in the group. Try changing the question. Instead of asking yourself “Do I belong?” or “Why don’t I belong?” ask, “How do I belong?”

WEBSITES OF INTEREST sigbuzz – enterprise marketing email signature tool BranchOut – Professional Networking on Facebook OtherInbox –  Regain control of you email inbox QUESTION OF THE MONTH How close does your outcome mach your strategic plan now that you are half way through the year? QUOTES “The strongest human