Two Things To Remember About Accountability

Posted: Nov 16, 2011 |

Accountability is rarely far from my mind when I am coaching leaders. Often times the topic appears as elusive and desirable as the Holy Grail: “If we could just figure out how to hold people accountable, we’d get so much done.”

Accountability is not the solution, yet effective leaders do need to define and demonstrate it to their team members. Keeping it near the top of the to do list is hard, of course.

Fortunately (or not?), news about leaders who have failed to hold themselves accountable surrounds us most weeks. For those of us in the United States, the most recent example is Joe Paterno, the newly fired Penn State football coach, who learned that one of his assistant coaches was molesting a child and passed on the information—and did nothing else.

Joe’s failure to hold himself and a direct report answerable is an example of how dramatic and destructive disregarding accountability can be.

Paterno’s mistakes remind us of two best practices.

1. Timing matters. Move fast when correcting (and praising).

If you observe a behavior that needs to be changed, give feedback—soon. The same applies when you want to recognize productive conduct. Act on it before the context is lost and while you can remember details.

If you find that you’ve waited and the memory is faded, choose to still coach the employee, and come clean that you should have spoken earlier. “I should have given you this feedback earlier, after I observed this behavior. I apologize. In the future, I will share my thoughts more promptly, allowing us to work together towards changes.”

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2. Delegating doesn’t mean you’re done.

Passing on a task to someone else doesn’t mean you are done with your part. When you delegate, when you hand off a task or information, you and the team member must discuss how you will check in. Not if you will do so.

If the team member has deep experience with you and the organization, the two of you may decide that you will routinely allow the person to carry through alone and only circle back at the end. You check in less frequently with a senior member of your team vs. a less experienced or less tenured member, yet you still check in, especially if the situation is a delicate or controversial one.

I don’t feel a leader demonstrates less faith in an individual when he checks in. I see it as demonstrating support and, in the words of The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, modeling the way.

The buck does stop with you.

A final thought for leaders: make yourself ultra available. Tell your team members—not once but once a week—to come find you when they need you. If you are ultra available, they will be more likely to try to get to you when they need to.

“When you need me, find me.” “Email, call me, text me.” “Swing by my desk.” “What help can I provide? What do you need from me?”

And when you get calls from team members, thank them: “Thank you for calling and checking in.”
Dan Pink wrote a recent blog entry with an example of ultra availability. That is modeling the way.

© Leila Bulling Towne  2011

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Leila Bulling Towne -
About the Author:

Leila Bulling Towne is an executive coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She helps executives and their teams lead with ease. As the executive’s problem solver, Leila’s techniques emphasize tangible, strategic steps for managing during downturns and the climb back up.Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Women’s Health, and many other publications. She is also a video host for CBS Interactive. For more information and a FREE report, “The 5 Leadership Themes For This Year,” visit http://www.bullingtowne.com.

1. The Gallup organization, an international research company with a division that focuses on employee engagement and motivation, estimates $300 billion is wasted every year in lost productivity at U.S. companies due to un-motivated, dis-engaged employees.

2. Another research firm, Sirota Survey Intelligence, reported in 2005 that in 85% of Fortune 1000 companies, employee motivation and morale “declined significantly” within the first six months of employment and continued to go down after that.

Those statistics are startling with regard to the potential impact on bottom line results of companies today. But, it is also not surprising.

Research I recently conducted of over 3000 subscribers to the Workplace Communication Expert blog (www.WorkplaceCommunicationExpert.com) showed 44% of business leaders are unhappy with employee performance.

When you look around your workplace and evaluate the productivity, motivation and morale of your people, how much might your organization be contributing to that $300 billion?

And, in evaluating the cost of hiring, on-boarding and training new employees, if not being done effectively, could this be another place where company profits are stealthily slipping off the financial statement?

Here are three specific strategies manufacturers can apply to develop, maintain or recapture employee motivation, morale and engagement so that your employees are truly assets bringing high value to the work environment:

1) Define your “Championship Game”
From the first day of training camp everyone that is part of an athletic team at any level from little league through the professional ranks knows the ultimate objective and vision for their team (organization) is to reach the Championship Game (for baseball it’s the World Series, football The Super Bowl, soccer it’s the World Cup, etc).

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It is the inspiring vision to win the championship that keeps everyone focused, doing the right things for the right reasons so they can contribute to the team’s success, while also being able to reap the well-defined, and not so-well defined, individual and collective rewards and opportunities that come with their contribution.

The same type of culture can be created inside any business. It takes strong, visionary leadership and consistent communication to make it successful.

2) Jointly create an agreed upon set of core organizational communication and behavioral values

Many organizations have their “values” hanging on posters in the hallways while managers and leaders both engage in, and enable others, in behaviors inconsistent with those values.

With no one holding anyone accountable to the values on the walls, performance and behaviors deteriorate and subsequently default to what is witnessed and experienced in the halls.

This, too, is a strategy that is both easy to create, plus easy to maintain when two processes are applied:
i. Bring your team(s) together to jointly create the organizational communication and behavioral values and commit to a “team agreement” that everyone, literally, signs on to.
ii. Leaders, managers and teammates agree to address violations of the values and team agreement immediately (or, at the earliest possible opportunity after a documented and witnessed behavior).
NOTE: One client that recently concluded this process reported employees were self-regulating themselves and their teammates six months after installation of the above strategy.

3) Create a communication “Forum” that includes a “feedback loop”
Communication is always among the top three issues or problems identified by employees in organizations. The challenge with this generic, vanilla statement is that there are too many aspects of communication to fix the problems.

It must be more clearly defined.

In a recent client project three different teams in one focus group identified communication as an organizational problem. Yet, each defined it differently from a completely different context.

One simple way to resolve this issue is to create a formal forum for communication that includes a two-way feedback loop.

This sounds much more complicated than it really is. It simply means that regular, structured meetings are facilitated to bring issues, problems, ideas and suggestions to the fore for company leaders to address and respond to.

There are four key steps for doing this successfully:
1) Schedule meetings at regular and consistent times
2) Invite a cross section of participants representing the various departments, divisions, etc.
3) Collect ideas, chunk them into related categories and prioritize
4) Create a system through which company leaders can respond to every item in a reasonably timely manner.

Often company leaders are leery of developing this type of communication process for fear of the meetings devolving into gripe sessions. These fears are valid and can be eliminated by doing these three things:
1) Setting clear guidelines at the outset,
2) Ensure that all ideas and suggestions are articulated in a positive, constructive manner, and
3) Following through with prompt feedback on all ideas so that those contributing feel as if their contributions were taken under consideration and were valued (it is perfectly okay to say “no” to an idea as long as it comes with a credible reason).

Manufacturers that have implemented some, or all, of the three above suggestions have been able to generate dramatic results, such as:
• $900,000 in waste eliminated within 12 months of implementation
• 300% increase in pre-tax profits over a five-year period
• 100% increase in pre-tax profits within four months of implementation
• 65% permanent improvement in workflow processes and 22% waste reduction within 12 months.

With results like that no business leader in Western civilization can argue that they can’t invest the time, energy and resources to learn how to implement the three simple strategies outlined above.

Give it a try.

Skip Weisman is The Leadership and Workplace Communication Expert based in Poughkeepsie, NY. Since 2001 he has partnered with business leaders and their teams to transform communication in workplaces in a way that offers dramatic increases in productivity, profit margins and the bottom line. His latest white paper report on which this article is based is 3 Simple Secrets to Increasing Your Bottom Line: How Maximizing Motivation, Trust and Commitment in Your Workplace Makes a Difference in Today’s Challenging Economy! The report is available free at www.TheEmployeeEngagementExpert.com . Skip can be reached at 845-463-3838 or by e-mail at Skip@WorkplaceCommunicationExpert.com
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Now, there’s an understandable tendency to equate influencing others in organizations with selling to customers. We talk about “selling ideas” and borrow learning from the extensive resources in the very important area of sales, thinking that it translates quite easily. That’s dangerous because it doesn’t.

There’s a better approach…

We need to shift our focus away from what we want to put across and toward what matters for the other person. (Of course, the most effective salespeople do that as well, but it may not be the first thought of the professional person seeking to persuade others of their point of view.)

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Here’s a typical scenario…

Jo has a sound and compelling professional argument about the future direction of a project. She makes the case articulately to senior managers and other stakeholders. Unfortunately for Jo, they have certain reasons for wanting to do things a different way and so ignore or even dismiss what she says. Jo is not privy to the whole picture and doesn’t understand why her input is being rejected.

Being a persuasive individual, Jo redoubles her efforts to put her point across. The others involved are now seriously inconvenienced by the power of what Jo is saying and resort to undermining her personally because they can’t refute her argument directly. Jo can neither deliver on her objectives, nor meet her superiors’ expectations. She eventually leaves the organization.

So how can we change the course of events?

The answer begins with finding out what matters to the people we need to influence-what they see as important-and demonstrating, before anything else, that we are oriented toward delivering what matters to them. Only when we have built a relationship of that kind, and established trust, will those we need to influence pay any attention to the input we need to make.

Don’t make this mistake…

Many of us, on securing the opportunity of an audience with those we need to influence, focus immediately on what matters to us and how we will present our information. That approach is likely to fail. Success begins with focusing on those we are presenting to, what they value, and the style of communication they prefer. Discerning something about their personality traits can also help us connect with them in the most effective way. There are techniques for doing all of this.

Now you might be thinking this shift of emphasis is very obvious, but it seems it’s not obvious enough to be normal behavior. There’s something about the culture of organizations-and it might be to do with the prevalence of personal objectives-that tends to make us focus on ourselves.

To influence people in organizations, start with what matters to them. Oddly perhaps, influencing other people begins with listening.

David Fraser, PhD, is a leading authority on relationship skills in professional and personal life. He is a business owner, chartered engineer, certified mediator, NLP master practitioner, and family man. David is a public speaker, broadcaster, and author of Relationships Made Easy: How to get on with the people you need to get on with… and stay friends with everyone else, published in the UK, and the ebook Relationships Made Easy for the Business Professional, available on Kindle and iPad. David has a track record of pioneering new approaches to old problems. He has delivered major projects for government and private sector clients in challenging situations and set up a number of entrepreneurial ventures. In addition to his work on relationship management with corporate clients, David runs workshop and coaching programs on relationship skills for both organizations and individuals, focusing on the potential to leverage results. David also finds the approach set out in Relationship Mastery: A Business Professional’s Guide to be extremely helpful in his home and family environmentTo Learn More Please Visit: http://www.drdavidfraser.com/
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MLM multi-level marketing helps the new entrepreneurs to develop the necessary skills to expand their own businesses. These skills are just very basic but are all necessary to maintain a strong foundation of your business. In MLM multi-level marketing strategy, it is very important that you have the leadership skills. As a leader, you must have the ability to guide your subordinates in the right path. More so, you are able to bring inspiration, motivation and influence to bring about change and help them in working together to attain the goals and mission of the team. Sales skills are also necessary in MLM because with this ability, it will help you to become an effective salesperson. Sales skills are also accompanied with right attitude such as self-confidence, good listener, persuasive, able to maintain strong foundation or relationship, and have self-motivation to become a good salesperson. In any form of business, marketing skills are also very important as you have to create new plans and techniques to keep your business running. This also includes implementing the strategies necessary to attract your target market and start building a strong relationship with them by selling and distributing your products and services.

Remember that skills are not talents, but you can always learn these three important skills to become successful in MLM multi-level marketing business. Once you have mastered all these skills, there is no way that you will not excel in your own business.

Most business would require new entrepreneurs to collect an amount of twenty five thousand dollars to invest in a business, in which it is definitely putting the individual in any risk. But this is totally different in MLM multi-level marketing as this business would only require a small amount of capital to operate the business. More so, MLM multi-level marketing business is also providing training programs and seminars, in which the new businessman will be taught in developing these three important skills.

If you are considering MLM multi-level marketing as your marketing strategy, it is advisable that you will also master on how to market through online and even offline. Always be certain that your chosen MLM has training programs that will help you in expanding your business through promotion and distribution of your products. It is very important that you will be familiarized and mastered the marketing system as this will take control of your business. More so, continuous learning and mastery of the three important skills will help you to become successful in entrepreneurship.

To know more about MLM Guru Buck Reed, please visit Buck Reed Official website.
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by Michael D. Hume, M.S.

If you want to be a more inspirational leader, as do most of my clients, you first have to be inspired. It’s natural to think of inspirational role models who’ve helped ignite your passion for what you do (whether you own your own business or toil in the service of an organization) and think, “I want to do what he does,” or “I want to be more like her.” That might work… but a lot of the time, it doesn’t.

Put twenty earnest leaders in a room, and you’ll have twenty different “right answers” on how to be more inspirational. I know – I’ve done it many times. And when you have leaders work together for a few days and then ask each other what they found inspiring about their colleagues, the answers generally cause everything from mild surprise to stunning revelation.

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The guy who’s been inspired by the thundering “evangelist” type, and who’s trying to pull off the same style without the tool kit (or grey hair) wielded by his role model, is often disappointed to learn he’s not inspiring his colleagues – who are really looking for inspiration in him. Meanwhile, the reserved woman who’s done nothing all week but execute her work, quietly encourage her teammates, and listen well to what her colleagues had to say – she’s usually stunned to find she’s the most inspiring leader in the room.

I’m not saying “loud” or speech-making inspiration doesn’t work – it does, for many leaders. But the folks for whom that style works are the ones who found their own loud voice as a true part of their personality, not the people who wear the style like a theatrical costume.

Think about all the people who’ve inspired you, and try to make a list of the attributes, actions, and words they used to make you want to excel. If someone did something that really inspired you to be your best, it’s obviously a legitimate “tool” of inspirational leadership… but that doesn’t mean it’s the right tool for you as you seek to inspire others. Borrow from other leaders, sure, but make certain you never stray far from the center of the person you are.

Not that it’s easy, but the best (and most simple) way to inspire others is to stay inspired yourself, and let the natural event of role-modeling “do the work.” True, you can skill-up, especially with excellent leadership coaching (give me a call, if you like). But you have to start from your authentic self. If you lose that center, you’re not going to inspire a lot of great things from a lot of teammates.

 Michael Hume is a speaker, writer, and consultant specializing in helping people maximize their potential and enjoy inspiring lives. As part of his inspirational leadership mission, he coaches executives and leaders in growing their personal sense of well-being through wealth creation and management, along with personal vitality.Those with an entrepreneurial spirit who want to make money “one less thing to worry about” can learn more about working with Michael at http://www.caym.tv/18812Anyone wanting to jump-start their vitality can browse through the best (and most travel-friendly) nutraceuticals on the market at http://shop.enivausa.com/239824Michael and his wife, Kathryn, divide their time between homes in California and Colorado. They are very proud of their offspring, who grew up to include a homemaker, a rock star, a service talent, and a television expert. Two grandchildren also warm their hearts! Visit Michael’s web site at http://michaelhume.net
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Broadly defined, a leader is someone who takes a group of people from Point A to Point B. Will a person who defines the vision for the company be the best one to get them out of a burning building? Not necessarily! Leaders with particular style might be better suited to a group at given time, but this might change as the company grows.

What characterizes leaders and separates them from most managers is vision.Effective leaders have a grasp on the big picture. Does this mean that the leader will always be the moral compass for the group? Outside of the Boy Scouts, probably not. Adolph Hitler was a leader who represented misguided values while in high office. In less extreme cases, a person with ethics but moral weakness in some areas, can still guide the company effectively in many other areas.

The British firm Team Technology defines several leadership styles for appropriate for different types of groups, or at different stages of the group’s life:

Participative: When you need commitment and cooperation from others to pull a project together, a leader who can work with different personalities and build consensus is a great match.
Idealogical: When the group needs direction on goals and values, the idealogical leader can keep the mission fresh.
Change-oriented: When the group needs to break out of the status quo and embrace change, this type of leader can forge a new direction.
Visionary: When the group needs to develop a long-term vision that might even set the company on a new course, a visionary leader make plans way outside the box.
Action-oriented: When the group needs someone to lead the charge and provide an example, the action-oriented leader is ideal.
Goal-oriented: When group needs the mission of the company redefined and distilled into strategies, a goal-oriented leader can make things clearer.
Executive leadership: When the group needs organization, policies, procedures, role-definition, or resource allocation. an executive type of leader is a perfect fit.
Leadership theorist: When the group needs technical direction or intense intellectual discussion, a leadership theorist can contribute to the analyses and determine the correct model for the group.

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When leadership is viewed as a role that might take different forms, it is clear that the skills required to be a leader vary too. Ideally, a good leader is flexible enough to embrace the style the group needs at the time – but some people specialize with groups that are at certain stages and move on.

If you want to be a leader, you must first determine what your skills are. You may find that you have several qualities that make a good letter and may also find that your group has need for several things you offer. One size definitely does not fit all.

Tracey Fieber is founder of “The Secrets to Retirement Success System™”, the most complete Retirement Transition program for executives and small business owners. Using her own principles, Tracey went from a corporate executive to a retirement filled with adventure, passion and purpose, in less than 8 months! Tracey is the celebrated author of the Retirement Success Home Study System™, and author of the upcoming book “How to Retire to a Life of Adventure, Passion and Purpose”. Get your free CD “7 Steps to Cracking the Retirement Code”, available on www.NewFaceOfRetirement.com. 2010 © New Face of Retirement, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to pass the above in its entirety to anyone you wish.
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Let’s be honest, you’re not living if you do not fail. Taking risks can be exciting. We are not born to be great and successful at everything. We learn through application and experimenting and this is regardless of training and education. The secret to success is not to quit – despite this being a short four letter word that is easy to say and do. Maybe it should have been a much longer word?

History shows that failure can be the path to success. At school, Napoleon was rated 42 out of a class of 43, yet he built an army to conquer many parts of Europe. George Washington lost 2/3rds of his military battles, yet against overwhelming odds won the revolutionary war and changed American history. Albert Einstein, a slow learner, was advised to change his studies from physics to something else. Yet he is considered the father of the atomic age.

The list goes on. We shouldn’t dwell on people’s failures, the journey to their success, but take the right perspective and look at their contributions to the world.

Only when you consider your failure really is final that you become a failure. Failure is not an event, it’s an opinion.

‘A righteous man may fall 7 times and rise again’

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The fear of failing! Is this you? Are you in this space? The fear of failing could prove fatal in achieving your gaols by preventing you from trying again and again.

Baseball players normally hit the ball 3 out of 10 times. How do these guys go out and play with such a high failure rate. They focus on the law of averages. They know if they keep swinging the bat they will eventually get on base.

In 1952, Roger Bannister a forma English athlete, ran in the Olympics in an attempt to beat the 4 minute mile record. In his race he came 4th place and failing to win anything. However, he refused to quit his goal to run the mile under 4 minutes. The historic event took place 6th May 1954 and Roger Bannister achieved his goal. Nowadays, runners do this all the time.

If you refuse to quit when you fail, you can ultimately succeed. You need to be willing to get back up.

Abraham Lincoln was defeated a number of times on his journey to become the 16th President of the USA. Today, he is considered to be one of the best. The wise man concluded:

‘It’s a mistake to suppose people succeed only through success. They often succeed through failure’.

By doing something the wrong way, you will soon learn to do it the right way. This is so true – practise makes perfect. The truth by failing in one area will drive you to explore other areas.

Most success in life is through trial and error. However, if you don’t like something then you are likely to fail. But this is driven by the lack of effort and commitment.  If you hate your job, you are likely to fail at it.

What do you understand about serving leadership? The benefit of failure makes you less judgemental of others. When you experience failure, you become more sympathetic. Instead of pointing and condemning others of their failures, instead you lend a helping hand and show them the way. Instead of saying, ‘I can’t believe you did that’. You take the view that you have been there and because of this understand their pain. This makes you a better mentor.

In the dictionary, striving and struggle comes before the word succeed. Coincidence or done on purpose?

Make the transition to live the dream. Learn from the mistakes you make. Don’t be afraid and have the right perspective.

We can all aspire to achieve better things. It may be a case of changing direction and doing something you have never done, but always dreamt of. I’m helping people to think positively about the future and how best use their time. I believe that people can find a way within to pursue an idea and a vision. We all have the ability to take control of our lives, but many just don’t know it or know how.

My name is Gary Oakes and I have established a 3 in 1 solution to help anyone who is looking to start an income opportunity through the comfort of ones own home. Step 1 is to develop the passion and drive – set expectations. Step 2 is much about internet marketing techniques (free information). Step 3 provides an opportunity to work from home. The website is full of information and you will not see such valuable information contained all in one place to help you. The journey starts by following this simple link to Ideas Working From Home.

There is no commitment or expense to view the free material available to help you, and you never know, this might be the very thing you are looking for!

I’m one of many jumping in on opportunities to find ways of working from home. I’m already establishing a business and this is being achieved by following an exciting and well pulled together internet marking system that will take anyone’s business to great heights and this is only the start of things to come. The great news is that I’m sharing what I consider to be the fundamentals to building a small business, whether at home or through brick and mortar. By the way, the information is free so take advantage of it today.
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Imagine a car making too sudden of a turn and flipping over.  This is how sudden change feels in an organization.  If the driver would have planned ahead, approached the curve at the right angle and speed, the car wouldn’t have tipped over.  And even with all that planning everybody in the car is still wearing their seatbelts-just in case.

Lesson:  Make change as gradually as you can.  Get everyone prepared as far ahead of time as you can.  And wear your seatbelt.

How do I do that at work John?  You do that by communicating change as far in advance of the event as you can.  When?  When you are getting your people involved in idea generation and brain storming and at the latest when you are picking which project you pitch to management.

How does that sound?

Well, folks we have generated some great ideas over the last month.  The change committee and I have looked at three of the ideas that you guys came up with.  It’s our firm judgement that project x has the best ROI and the greatest chance of being approved and funded.  Best case scenario, we could be working on this in only six months.   Who here would like to share some of the things this would mean?

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Joe: Long hours

Sally: Overtime that I need

Wendy: Less resources for other projects.

Mike:  Negotiating with vendors.

John: What about positive outcomes when we successfully complete the project?

Mike: Less downtime.

Sally: Less corrupted data:

Fred: Better access to data we need.

John-Excellent!

Let’s go back to the car wreck scenario.  Maybe the car turned over because it was dodging another car.  There are very few one car accidents.  The next key is to eliminate as much unnecessary change as possible during important change.  Think about  all the scary changes going on in people’s lives now-housing bubble bursting, stock market gyrations, worry about their jobs.  Adding additional change and uncertainty is sometimes necessary-other change is not.

Big idea-What other changes can you put off? What other uncertainties can you cut out? One of the biggest things to focus on is the negative possible outcomes.

▪               Will this important change mean someone loses job security because their old expertise is gone?

▪               Will this important change mean staff changes?

▪               Will this important change mean more or less responsibility for certain people?

▪               Will this important change mean some people will fear for their jobs.

Think about these issues and address them as early and as truthfully as you can.

Action items:

Prepare people for change as soon as you can.
Eliminate any other unnecessary changes.
Reassure people about the effects of the change.
Give people the tools to deal with the change-especially training
Be as truthful as you can about foreseen difficulties and fallout.
When you think you have communicated clearly and often enough-communicate some more!.
Enjoy being part of an organization that does change well!
John Cameron is the spark.  He is the light he is the glue.  Using humor and great process, through keynotes, consulting, workshops and webinars, John gives leaders, managers and project managers the plan, skills and courage to do what they MUST do.  John delivers lasting growth in confidence, sills and results.  Watch John in action on his youtube channel now http://www.youtube.com/user/thejohnacameronContact him for quotes on keynotes, webinars and workshops at theeffectiveleadershopcoach.com
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by Michael D. Hume, M.S.

I’ve written often about the primary “need” expressed by most of my clients – the need (or desire) to increase their inspirational leadership. I’ve also written a good deal about the two basic types of people out there – the Entrepreneur, and the Victim. It turns out the two concepts are linked. It’s all about appreciation of yourself and of others.

After years of coaching and counseling some of the brightest leaders (and emerging leaders) in today’s business world, I’ve written a guide to practical empathy called “Feelings For Thinkers.” So far, I’ve shared the bulk of the content only with my clients. One of the key pieces in the book is a discussion of what makes the difference between leaning toward your “inner Entrepreneur” or your “inner Victim,” and the two attitudinal types differ primarily in their developed ability to properly appreciate themselves and others.

As I’ve mentioned in previous pieces, I would not suggest that a leader abandon critical reason (or the ability to be critical of work products) in their effort to become more inspirational. Inspiring someone doesn’t mean coddling them. But frankly, most of my smart clients lean too much on their thinking and not enough on their emotional ability, and therefore develop what I teasingly refer to as “Empathy Deficiency Syndrome.” The best leaders are able to be appropriately critical of work products without coming across as being critical of people and their efforts.

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The two dimensions of self-appreciation and appreciation of others divide leaders into four basic camps. A person high on self-appreciation and low on appreciation of others tends to come across as the “Arrogant Boss,” and that person’s primary visible attitude is one of entitlement. The opposite type – high on others but low on herself – comes across as the “Humble Servant,” with a primary visible attitude of obligation. The first seems to believe his teammates don’t deserve their positions; the latter, that she doesn’t deserve hers. Neither is an effective style for inspirational leadership.

Both, though, are better than the “Apathetic Victim,” who is low on appreciation of both self and others. Toward himself, such a “leader” has an attitude of concealment – he doesn’t share much of himself because he doesn’t want to be “found out.” Toward others, he’s always critical, usually overly-so. And in general, this political creature is competitive… everything is win-lose, or more commonly, lose-lose.

Obviously, the most inspirational leaders are high on both self-appreciation and appreciation of others. They’re optimistic, roll-up-your-sleeves doers. Such a person has a courageous attitude toward self-discovery, a curiosity about other people (not just their problems, or what they can offer her), and in general, she has a collaborative spirit. She’s likely to have an entrepreneurial bent, and she’s likely to be both inspired and inspiring.

In this age, when a business owner or leader must rely less than his forebears did upon command-and-control authority, inspirational leadership is key. The winners in the coming years will be the leaders who are skilled not just in critical thinking, but in empathy and inspiration. And good news: these are skills that can be developed, especially with the help of a great coach. Give me a call!

 Michael Hume is a speaker, writer, and consultant specializing in helping people maximize their potential and enjoy inspiring lives. As part of his inspirational leadership mission, he coaches executives and leaders in growing their personal sense of well-being through wealth creation and management, along with personal vitality.Those with an entrepreneurial spirit who want to make money “one less thing to worry about” can learn more about working with Michael at http://www.caym.tv/18812Anyone wanting to jump-start their vitality can browse through the best (and most travel-friendly) nutraceuticals on the market at http://shop.enivausa.com/239824Michael and his wife, Kathryn, divide their time between homes in California and Colorado. They are very proud of their offspring, who grew up to include a homemaker, a rock star, a service talent, and a television expert. Two grandchildren also warm their hearts! Visit Michael’s web site at http://michaelhume.net
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