The New Leaders

Of all the big issues facing healthcare organizations, leadership development is the least pressing but arguably the most important. Leadership skills are requisite beyond the CEO's office, particularly in an era when demands for change press on all functions and levels. An executive roundtable at the HealthLeaders Media CEO Exchange, held last fall at The Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., discussed leadership development programs for executives and physicians alike, the rise of new leadership competencies, and sources of inspiration.

Some health systems, particularly large organizations with many eadership positions, have long recognized the importance of developing leaders from within. MemorialCare Health System, the six-hospital, $2 billion integrated delivery system in Southern California, has enrolled 20 business-side executives and physician leaders in dual "leadership academies" each year since 1997. CEO Barry Arbuckle, PhD, said, "Below the senior level, closer to the front lines, we spent a lot of time on leadership development. We've had MemorialCare Academy in place for 16 years. We also have now a physician leadership academy. … Those have been an enormous benefit for developing and grooming leaders in the company. If you look at who has been promoted over the last 15 years, you can draw a direct line right back to the academy."

But the leadership requirements for healthcare organizations are shifting with the advent of new payment structures and operational models. New competencies are needed to handle risk management, case management, and medical informatics. "I think leadership is changing rapidly," said Christopher Howard, president and CEO of SSM Health Care-St. Louis. "The ability of a physician to think like a CEO and to deal with the issues that are in front of the lay leaders on a daily basis—the balance sheets, the income statements, every other report and responsibility we have, the ability to grasp and understand that and see a holistic picture—is going to be key for physician leaders of the future."

Read complete at healthleadersmedia.com

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Personal Leadership Development

Excellent video from Michael Berry:

A Personal Leadership Development Business Opportunity. It's Success Education. The winner of two prestigious awards. Industry experts refer to our unique business model as a "refreshing alternative to franchises & traditional businesses". Now in over 56 countries around the world.

A one of a kind pay structure. We're a direct sales company with one profit paid per product sold. But this is not for everyone. I know this, therefore I interview everyone to see if this might be a fit for both of us. I am looking for people who know they deserve an abundant life and are ready to reap the rewards of being self employed. These people are serious about getting significant results in their life, highly motivated and committed to the journey of achieving success with their own business.

Source: youtube.com

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How To Develop The Highest Potential Leaders

The world's best companies purposely identify and develop high-potential managers and leaders. Because those with the right talent and experience are more likely to deliver results, businesses should begin their succession planning efforts by identifying and selecting leaders with a scientifically validated leadership talent assessment.

No amount of experience will turn an average leader into a great one.

But it's equally important for businesses to prepare high-potential leaders with experiences that will develop their potential. "When it comes to preparing emerging leaders for executive roles, general experience isn't important," says Barry Conchie, a Gallup Senior Scientist and coauthor of Strengths Based Leadership. "Very specific kinds of experience benefit high-potential leaders most."

Identifying experiences that encourage leadership success

Every leader needs what Conchie calls additive experiences. These kinds of experiences include running a risky project or integrating a complex acquisition. "Additive experiences are rare, and leaders who are more successful have them," Conchie says. "So if you want to be a top leader, it's imperative to plan a career to acquire them."

But the best leaders have another realm of experiences so transformative that Conchie calls them breakthrough experiences. They include:

• being promoted to a high-visibility position before feeling ready. One example of this kind of experience is putting an executive into a lead position on a key market segment when the executive does not feel comfortable or fully prepared to be in that role.
• navigating extreme cultural adversity. Managing a highly unionized environment, leading the turnaround of a highly disengaged and antagonistic workforce, running a location a great distance from the company's geographic center, or managing a function on the far edge of the company's core competence are examples of this type of experience.
• leading a cross-functional team on a major initiative. Examples of this type of experience include leading a team to decide a new product market segment where none exists or pulling together technology, marketing, and finance professionals to work up a new product sourcing process without having any relevant experience in those areas.

These challenges are so rare that they need to be reserved for candidates with the highest potential. "That's one very good reason to know precisely who your emerging leaders are," Conchie says. "You don't want to waste a breakthrough experience on someone who won't benefit from it -- and may botch the job."

Read complete at businessinsider.com

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5 Leadership Trends to Watch in 2013

Wrote by, Lindsay Olson

Think social media is the only trendy thing in the business world? Think again. Management techniques and leadership styles have trends too, and as experts crop up with new strategies for managing employees, these trends evolve. Andrew Graham, president and CEO of The Forum Corporation, a Boston-based learning organization, has some interesting predictions of leadership trends in 2013.

1. You must lead change. With unemployment rates bouncing up and down, and companies cutting pay increases and bonuses, constant volatility has become the new norm in the workplace. And that can make for an uncomfortable environment ... unless you manage it. Graham says Forum research points to three critical practices for leaders:

• Build your context agility 
• Exercise judgment in action
• Develop professional intelligence

Essentially, give your team confidence that change doesn't necessarily mean upheaval, and make decisions on a case-by-case basis, rather than applying blanket actions to every situation.

2. Good managers will be hard to find. Because of that very change mentioned in No. 1, many qualified managers are turning to entrepreneurship rather than continuing to climb the corporate ladder. For companies, that means the search for good help will be difficult in 2013. "Don't expect to be able to hire fully capable managers from outside," Graham says. "Instead, grow your own: Hire promising talent early and invest in their training and retention. Look for emerging leaders and, again, invest in them."

Make sure you've got an excellent training program and a clear-cut path for your staff to move into increasingly higher roles of responsibility. Not only will you cultivate great leaders, but you'll also reduce turnover.

3. People-leadership skills will be more highly valued. Of all the skills and experience a manager gets on the job, the ability to lead people is ranking higher every year. According to the research and management firm Leadership IQ's "Talent Management in America and China," organizations with managers who use certain people-leadership skills tend to perform better in their industries. Companies that are leaders in their industries report much higher use of people-leadership practices than lower performing organizations.

Companies that want to lead the pack on this should incorporate these four tenets in employee training:

• Think like a leader 
• Coach a team
• Get results through others
• Engage people

4. It will take a village. Whereas past leadership efforts have been all about the individual as a leader, in 2013 it will be about the collective efforts of a team. Because leaders are coming across new challenges, there isn't any history to base making an informed decision on, and leaders must look to their social networks, employees, and other leaders to make the best decision.

Graham suggests leaders "create multilevel leadership development systems, and a) ensure consistency between the levels: consistent competencies, concepts, language, and themes; b) give each level a strong role in the programs for the next level down; c) be intentional about bringing together leaders from different business units, functions, and geographies for training and development opportunities."

It's okay to show that you don't always have the answer. A good leader at the very least knows where to find that answer.

5. Boot camp training is so 2012. In recent years, companies have taken a boot camp approach to training, trying to cram as much information as possible in the minds of employees in just a few hours. Graham says we're starting to see a backlash. "Learners have no desire to come to a training class in which they're forced to work at a breakneck pace all day, complete difficult assignments in the evening, and at the same time keep up with all their regular work."

Source: USNews.com

Leadership at Christmas Time

Our children need our leadership through their growing years. My children are now all in their 20’s and still yearn for leadership in the form of guidance and consistency. I remember when they were little, they would look with adoring eyes at the things Mum and Dad did for them, and said to them.

Our work environments are no different to our home environments – we have people looking up to us, and watching every move we make. Our leadership obligation is not optional. We are “on show” wherever we go and whatever we do.

As we come to the end of another year of business we start to think about unwinding and enjoying a break with friends and family, but still people are watching.

There is a difference between “unwinding” and “unravelling”. There have been some spectacular “falls from grace” when people have unravelled in the public eye.

Stephanie Rice had established a great persona as an Olympic Swimmer and was setting herself up for a career in the media spotlight. A little too much to drink brought it all undone. A controversial rant on Twitter led to most of her major sponsors dumping her overnight.

It’s not up to the “minders” to get us through these situations, it’s up to our own leadership to recognise the perils, and take appropriate action.

Just like our businesses have a brand (which we are careful not to damage the brand) we each have a personal brand that needs to be protected.

Grant Hackett damaged his brand when the police were called to his luxury apartment after a big day at the Melbourne Cup recently. Kyle Sandilands lost more than $1 million in Sponsorship when he damaged his personal brand after having a rant on the radio this week. Both the French and Italian Prime Ministers have damaged their personal brands in recent times.

Imagine if you saw any of our last five Prime Ministers at the local shopping mall dressed in a blue singlet with footy shorts and a pair of flip flop thongs on their feet. That would be incongruent with their brand or image. It would also destroy all the efforts they had made in providing leadership to their followers, regardless of your political beliefs.

Religious leaders and corporate leaders have the same responsibilities. Their leadership is always on show and in uncertain times people look for consistency and leadership.

The late Steve Jobs built the Apple brand to what it is today. He didn’t do it singlehandedly, he did it by having a great leadership model with an impeccable image. Do you think that if he regularly “let his hair down” with Friday night drinks that went too far, or showed his team any other shortcomings, that his leadership would have been so compelling?

Read Complete at accountanttocoach.com

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5 Biggest Leadership Lessons From 2012

This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources, and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. The article below was originally published at Inc.com.

It’s been quite a year for leadership lessons. Any one of a multitude of events in 2012 (Hurricane Sandy, The London Olympics, Benghazi and its fallout) would provide a case study in how to lead–and sometimes, sadly, how not to.

Here are my personal top five leadership lessons from 2012:

1. Institutionalize your Vision (with a capital V).

It’s over a year since he died, but Steve Jobs was still handing out leadership lessons in 2012.

The question everyone began asking almost immediately his sad, early death was announced was: “Will Apple survive the loss of its Visionary founder?”

This year showed that, while the jury is still out as to whether it will be exactly the same company or not, Apple isn’t going to disappear any time soon–far from it.

Unlike CEOs at companies such as Starbucks, Gateway, and Dell, Steve Jobs clearly succeeded in institutionalizing his vision by driving it deep into the very warp and woof of the company and instilling it into Apple’s management DNA.

Howard Schultz, for example, hasn’t yet achieved this at Starbucks. He’s still the personification of “his” company’s vision.

Are you the personification of your company’s vision? If you left, would it leave too? Or have you hired, mentored and coached your vision into the company, so that it would stand without you?

2. Remember that big does not necessarily mean important.
 
It’s hard to remember the degree of hoop-la that surrounded the Facebook IPO back in May. I mean Mayan-calendar-the-world-is-ending hoop-la.

And that very fact–that something so highly anticipated could turn out to be such a fizzle–is a lesson in itself. Big does not necessarily equal important.

Take a look at the big things that have your attention. Are any of them merely big, but are actually unimportant? If so, chances are you could save a lot of leadership resource by dumping that project.

3. Plans mean nothing, but planning is everything. That the Mars Rover landing of ‘Curiosity’ in August was an incredible feat of technical skill is undoubted (if you haven’t watched the NASA video, I urge you to do so).

But hidden in the story, lurking behind the technical pyrotechnics, is a story of leadership in the face of almost-unbelievable uncertainty.

Often missed in the retelling of Curiosity’s landing is the fact that no-one at NASA could do a single thing about the outcome. Once the landing module had begun its descent, everything–every tiny movement, every one of the millions of microscopic adjustments–was being made by pre-programmed software.

No-one back at NASA HQ had their hands on a joystick, no-one could change even a millimeter of the module’s direction. Either everything worked out okay, or it didn’t. There was no way to adjust on the fly. In the end, all those plans were essentially meaningless.

As Mike Tyson has said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched on the nose.”

In leadership, often our plans turn out to be close to useless. But planning? Planning is what put Curiosity on Mars. It can get you anywhere you want to go.

4. Don’t do deals you don’t understand.The ongoing, four-year HP debacle turned almost cartoonish with November’s announcement that HP is to write off $9 billion (yes, that’s a “b”) of its investment in Autonomy–a company for which it paid $12 billion in October 2011.

There’s still a lot to be written about this fiasco, but one thing is immediately obvious: no-one on the HP side, from then-CEO Leo Apotheker to the three firms of auditors involved (and including the entire board) knew what the heck they were buying.

It looked good. It filled a strategic vacuum. And it was available. So they did the deal.

You’d think only very large companies with access to gobs of cash fall for this type of stupid transaction, but sadly I’ve seen founder/owners and small business owners bet the ranch – and fail – many times.

As my grandmother would say, “If you don’t understand it, don’t do it.”

5. Leaders need to, well, actually lead. Finally, as the year closes out, we’re watching perhaps the biggest failure of leadership of our time play out. As the United states hurtles closer to fiscal impact (we fell off the fiscal cliff quite some time ago), political leaders of all stripes have abdicated the only thing we ask of them–leadership.

The #1 leadership lesson of 2012? Lead, for goodness sake. It’s your job.

Source: Time.com
Read more

The Qualities a Leader Should Possess and How to Attain Them

What entails being a good leader? Throughout history, exceptional leaders have been known to be great communicators who inspire their subordinates and empower them to perform their best. They also possess superior organizational skills, ruling vast empires like they were tending to their backyards. Today's prominent leaders include heads of successful nations, companies, and various organizations. While technology might have developed, the attributes of a great leader remain unchanged.

To be a good leader, one must possess some notable attributes though this is easier said than done. When leadership seminars weren't in vogue, leaders were born into a life of greatness. However, today, practically anyone can be a leader with the right guidance and commitment. Various leadership training programs are now available to groom individuals to become better leaders.

Coaching is conducted in different ways, and is designed to suit different kinds of people. Various leadership styles apply to different individuals, and leadership roles can range anywhere from managerial, role model, coach, to a mentor approach. While common attributes prevail for every strategy, there are particular aspects of leadership coaching which vary with each person. However, the final result is that each person emerges bearing the skills needed to become a more effective leader.

Leadership training and development aims to improve leadership skills that should be possessed by every leader. Effective communication is essential in motivating subordinates and asserting one's self. Leadership is a two-way process which involves communication between you and your team members. It is, therefore, crucial to harbor positive relations between you and your colleagues, while maintaining professionalism.

Military leadership development programs originated from education taken by war veterans. In the warzone, leaders must possess advanced planning and organizational skills, as well as innovative thinking to adapt to the many contingencies common in wars. In other instances, such leadership capabilities are perfect for leaders to overcome stressful situations and address unforeseen issues.

An executive leadership training program centers on the importance of a leader's overall health to enhance leadership skills and emphasizes on a healthy lifestyle and diet. Healthy leaders are believed to perform exceptionally well. Unhealthy leaders, on the other hand, would often hamper an endeavor's progress when they are unable to attend to their responsibilities because of poor health. Apart from leadership and personal qualities, diet and exercise routines are also taught in these programs.  Much emphasis is placed on maintaining holistic wellness so that the mind and body are able to focus on the all-important task of leading.

Source: articlesbase.com

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