Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

As we near the first-year anniversary of the day Nelson Mandela died, I think about my favorite  Nelson Mandela  leadership quotes: "Lead from the back--and let others believe they are in front." "The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." "It always seems impossible until it's done." "I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles." "I've learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

With only one month left of 2014, it's not too early to start identifying your New Year's Resolutions for 2015. To get you started, how about selecting one or more of these 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders? Perhaps write down five to ten and then between now and December 31, think about which couple you want to work on in 2015. Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize gr

In her new book, Rookie Smarts , author Liz Wiseman explains the benefits of having both veteran employees and new employees (rookies) on a team.   The four main benefits are : The veteran brings clarity and gravitas while the rookie brings energy and determination. The veteran sees the potential and promise of the novel ideas of the rookie. The veteran knows how the world works and guides the entrepreneur who wants to change the world. When the disparate contributions of experience and naivete are appreciated, the combination sparks collective brilliance.

As you think about what business books you want to read next year, how about adding to the list at least one book from the list below. Perhaps a book that will help you improve your leadership skills. A couple years ago, members of five groups on the professional social media web site  LinkedIn  voluntarily recommended their favorite books about leadership. They responded to a group discussion question,  "Best Leadership Books -- What's Your Favorite?" When contemplating their favorites, they likely thought about which books were in their minds the best, most favored, most inspiring, most instructional, most relevant, and which ones they might reference frequently. The recommendations came from these member groups: ExecuNet Executive Suite Leadership Think Tank Linked 2 Leadership Keller Graduate School Of Management The Talent Buzz As the recommendations rolled in, it became clear that leaders learn from, and are inspired by, a wide variety of books -- b

When you start reading Mark Thompson’s and Brian Tracy’s book called,  Now…Build a Great Business! , you may feel like you are reading 200 pages of Blog posts, but the bite-sized approach to providing tools, practical steps and ideas, rather than theory, is precisely the authors’ intended approach. The book thoroughly explains the  seven keys for how to achieve business success : 1.  Become a great leader 2.  Develop a great business plan 3.  Surround yourself with great people 4.  Offer a great product or service 5.  Design a great marketing plan 6.  Perfect a great sales process 7.  Create a great customer experience You’ll find a checklist at the end of each step (each chapter) where you can write down your action plan for applying what you’ve learned. Particularly interesting is the chapter on  strategic planning , where the authors recommend you should  ask yourself these important questions before you act to create or reinvent the direction of your organization :

Author  Kristi Hedges , in her book,  The Power of Presence , provides these explanations of the  roles of a coach and of a mentor  and how they differ from each other: The Coach  shows empathy through a mixture of tough love and strong support.  The coach is not afraid to push you because she sees the best in you.  This leader has a good sense of what's going on in the rest of your life and isn't afraid to mention it as it relates to your performance and potential. The Mentor  makes you feel that your success is always top of mind.  Mentors have your back to guide you along in your career.  They will act as a confidante as you hash through ideas and won't hold it against you as your iterate.  Because they have done well, they operate from a point of helping others do the same.

Today's  guest post  is by: Peggy Pedwano Solutions Specialist at  Halogen Software As performance appraisal time draws near, managers are all too likely to be dreading the exercise.  According to a  report by the Wharton School, although 91% of companies worldwide have a performance review process, only 35 to 40% do it well, often because managers lack the training to write effective performance appraisals.  Here are some ideas to  help you write effective performance appraisals  that can form the basis for a discussion that will actually add value to employee performance reviews.   Begin with a clear understanding of what is important . If you and your employees have set performance goals or established other performance measurement criteria, this should be a relatively easy process. But even if you haven’t, taking the time to think through the year’s priorities and projects will help you focus your appraisal on what matters most. Consider projects where yo

On December 1 I'll announce my vote for the best new leadership book of 2014 .  Stay tuned. It's a great one. In the meantime, here's a look back at my  my top (favorite) books for leaders  that were  published in 2013 . Each provides timely, practical and valuable tips, techniques and tools for how to become a more effective leader. You'll find among the books useful information about: communicating more effectively  the power of story telling creating an ethical workplace culture increasing revenue the basics you need to know as a first-time leader Ethical Leadership Unlimited Sales Success Manager 3.0 AMA Business Boot Camp The way of the SEAL Becoming a Better Boss Leadership Conversations And, my favorite from 2012 in case you haven't read this book: Lead with a Story

There are  eight specific actions  business leaders can take to  show that they value their employees , according to  Andrew Leigh , author of the  book ,  Ethical Leadership -- Creating and Sustaining an Ethical Business Culture . Those  eight behaviors  are: Attention  -- Pay attention to what people say to show your interest. Listen  -- Make time to hear what colleagues, peers and employees have to say to show you care. Positive Language  -- Find words and phrases to show employees they're needed.  Examples are, "We couldn't have accomplished this without you," "That was really useful." Document  -- Put praise in writing to increase its impact.  Make clear where the credit belongs. Micro Sessions  -- Create two-way communication sessions. Visits  -- Schedule visits to teams and work areas. Stories  -- Share stories that highlight unusual contributions and provide your personal response to them. Invite  -- Ask people to contact you dire

This month saw the release of the new book,  The Ten Golden Rules of Leadership:  Classical Wisdom for Modern Leaders . As you dig in, you'll step back in time to learn philosophies of the past and how to apply them today. Authors  M. A. Soupios  and  Panos Mourdoukoutas  offer a fresh approach to becoming a great leader by learning from antiquity's great thinkers, such as Aristotle, Hesiod, Sophocles, Heraclitus, and others. Each chapter in the book is devoted to one philosophy of leadership that equate to  ten simple rules : Know Thyself Office Shows the Person Nurture Community at the Workplace Do Not Waste Energy on things You Cannot Change Always Embrace the Truth Live Life by a Higher Code Always Evaluate Information with a Critical Eye Never Underestimate the Power of Personal Integrity Character is Destiny You'll learn how to take each idea and apply it to the challenges of the modern workplace. According to the authors, the key distinguish

Research from some universities around the country show that employees who " click " with each other at work have more career success.  And, those who "click" well get to the core of the office network within 18 months, while it can take years for those who don't "click" well. As a leader, there are things you can do and things you can encourage your employees to do to promote better clicking . Consider these findings from the research: How much you reveal about yourself to a co-worker helps you click. The more you open up and share your feelings, the more trust you build and the more likely you'll build a connection with a co-worker. Having an office or cubicle in the central area of your workplace increases your ability for clicking opportunities. Sitting near the middle of a conference table brings you more clicking opportunities , as well. Keeping your office door open, communicating in person versus e-mail or via the phone, allows

As a leader, it's critical that you understand the real reasons employees leave your company. To do that, you need to  ask specific questions  that may not be ones you currently include in your exit interviews. Fortunately,  Richard Finnegan , shares in his book,  Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad ,  four key questions you should include in your exit interviews : Why did you decide to leave us? Of all the things you've told me, what is the top thing that caused you to resign? It's great that you've found such a good opportunity, but why did you look? What one thing could we have done that would have caused you to stay? Your goal is to learn  the most important leave reason  rather than learn which three or five things contributed to your employee's decision to leave. The four questions above will help you learn the most important reason.

Awhile back, the  Harvard Business Review  published some great questions that  Gilt Groupe  CEO Kevin Ryan asks when he is checking references. Ryan serves on the board of Yale Corporation, Human Rights Watch, and  INSEAD , and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He holds a B.A. from Yale University and a M.B.A from INSEAD. His main seven honest-feedback-extracting-questions (and follow-ups) are : Would you hire this person again?  If so, why and in what capacity?  If not, why not? How would you describe the candidate's ability to innovate, manage, lead, deal with ambiguity, get things done and influence others? What were some of the best things this person accomplished?  What could he or she have done better? In what type of culture, environment, and role can you see this person excelling?  In what type of role is he or she unlikely to be successful? Would you describe the candidate as a leader, a strategist, an executor, a collaborator, a thinker, or

High-functioning teams can disagree and still produce excellent products and results. Team members can also disagree and still care about each other. And, they can challenge each other to think differently. Best-selling leadership book authors  Scott J. Allen  and  Mitchell Kusy  recommend that leaders ask seven tough questions of their teams to help maximize their results. Here are those questions to ask each team member: What are some obstacles  affecting this team? What are opportunities  we could take advantage of that we have been largely ignoring? Where can you take greater ownership  on this team? Where have you let this team down ? Compared to other teams with which you are familiar,  how are we doing ? When was the last time you complimented the team  or one of its members? How open are you to giving direct feedback  to team members?

From Jay Miletsky's book,  101 Ways to Successfully Market Yourself , here  10 tips for projecting an effective professional image : Discipline yourself to be positive and enthusiastic. In tense situations choose positive responses by maintaining perspective and getting along well with others. Acknowledge mistakes and shortcomings and learn how to correct them. Develop a reputation for being a resourceful problems solver. Leverage your strengths and expertise to have maximum impact on the decisions you make. Be organized, efficient, flexible, and self-motivated. Master your tasks and fully expand your area of expertise so that you can boost your output. Keep up with the latest developments in your company and in your field. Cultivate unique talents that give you a definite edge. Gain visibility by taking the kind of action that will propel you into the right sights of management personnel.

Change is inevitable. Change is good.  Help your employees and team learn to embrace change. Here are some solid insights from  Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan 's (Liberty, Missouri) book,  Change-friendly Leadership -- How to Transform Good Intentions into  Great Performance : The kind of behavior change that results in lasting (sustainable) change must accommodate people's feelings--feelings that involve trust, confidence, passion, and all those other intangible but very real things that make us human. It's often the stress that people resist, not the change itself. Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights ( Pauline R. Kezer ). A transformational leader focuses primarily on initiating and "managing" change.  He/she influences people to improve, to stretch, and to redefine what's possible. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive t

With a title like Chief Encouragement Officer at Compete Every Day ( CED ), it's no wonder that Jake Thompson is leading the way in motivating predominantly athletes and fitness enthusiasts around the world to compete for what they aspire to achieve. "Compete Every Day is a lifestyle brand devoted to inspiring the competitive mindset that each one of us has a life worth competing for. Every second. Every day," explains Jake, who also founded CED. "Our goal is to fuel your fire, but that's only the beginning. At CED we want to drive you; we want to help you see it through to the end. 365 days a year, seven days a week, 86,400 seconds per day. However long it takes," he adds. CED fuels that fire by selling T-shirts, wristbands, shorts and other clothing featuring motivational and inspirational slogans.  CED also shares its motivation and customer stories via Facebook , Twitter and Instagram. What started as a simple idea a few year

Here are some of my favorites quotes from John C. Maxwell's book,  The 5 Levels of Leadership  -- a book I   believe should become a must-read for any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for bringing out the best in the team. Progress comes only from taking

Coherence:  The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership  is the new book by author  Dr. Alan Watkins . Trained as a medical doctor, Watkins is now  an honorary senior lecturer in neuroscience and psychological medicine at Imperial College, London and an affiliate professor of leadership at the European School of Management, London. According to Watkins,  coherence is the biological state achieved when elite performers experience maximum efficiency and super effectiveness, where body and mind are one . Coherence  provides one of the most unique approaches to showing leaders how to be  younger, smarter, healthier and happier  -- which gives them the power to make decisions under pressure and achieve sustainable success. Prepare to spend quality time reading  Coherence . It's not light reading.  Kind of feels like a medical text book in parts.  But, it's worth your commitment to it. I particularly found useful Watkin's discussion on  culture , where he wrote

Edward M. Marshall's book,  Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace , remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it. Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader. Marshall says that there are  seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams , and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs. The seven roles are : The leader as sponsor  -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes. The leader as facilitator  -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members. The leader as coach  -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board. Th

Early on in Eli Broad's book,  The Art of Being Unresaonable , he reminds us of the power of a child's instinctive asking, " Why not? "  Unfortunately, most adults lose that habit and Broad goes on to explain that it was his continuing to ask "Why not?" throughout his career that brought him success. " The questions you're willing to ask when others think they have all the answers are doors to   discovery ," says Broad. Other words of wisdom from the book, and my favorite takeaways, include : Most successful businesses have to begin by  bucking conventional wisdom .  Invention and innovation don't happen without it. Do your homework  no matter how much time it takes. Big ideas don't happen in a moment . You can't do it all yourself, so  ask questions and delegate . The trick to delegating is to  make sure your employees share your priorities . Find the best people to whom you can  delegate, and know their strengths an

I recommend that all leaders every so often read the  What Will Matter  poem by  Michael Josephson . It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of unselfishly serving and leading with character. I've highlighted in bold and in color below my favorite parts of the poem: Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end. It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Growing up in the 1960's sometimes my parents would say to me, "now, don't tell stories," heading off what they anticipated might be an untruthful account of events.  That negative stigma of storytelling stayed with me for quite some time. Today, as an adult, I now know the immense power of storytelling.  Truthful stories, of course.  Storytelling is indeed one of the most powerful ways we communicate.   Stories demand attention of listeners.  Stories inspire.  Stories are contagious . " Stories put the listener in a mental learning mode ," explains Paul Smith , author of the bestseller , Lead With A Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire . Paul is an authority on storytelling and has helped business people around the world to more effectively use storytelling. Paul Smith Now, Paul has a new book, Parenting with a Story:  Real-Life Lessons in Character for Parents and Children to Share .    B