July 2008

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Compensate to Motivate Your Sales Team

When I speak to business executives, one of the challenges I often hear is that their sales team is not doing the things they feel are most critical to the success of the company. I then ask to see their compensation plan. After a thorough read, I share my impression of the message of the [...]

The Number One Failing of Really Useless Leaders


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Now I’m sure you’ve read Stephen Covey’s excellent book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. But if you haven’t, you should. It’s an inspiring summary of the seven simple but motivational things you need to do to be an inspirational leader. And it can help you to build an inspirational leadership style.
I mention Covey’s [...]

Two Serious Failings of Really Useless Leaders


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It’s daunting for business leaders who aspire to improve their leadership to be told to follow the example of Gandhi or Martin Luther King. These people are certainly inspirational, but they’re a tough act to follow in the real world.
I’ve therefore been looking at what we can learn from leaders who get it wrong. In [...]

Leadership… It’s Not Just For Managers


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The other day my nine-year old daughter and two sons (seven and five years old respectively) were playing with neighborhood friends. Out of the blue, my two sons came running home upset because the girls in the group told them they didn’t want to play with them. I was puzzled. Wasn’t my daughter also in [...]

Three Steps to Unleashing Your Team’s Potential


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Most people could perform at a much higher level than they do if their boss created a suitable environment for them to flourish in. In many instances, it’s the boss who is holding the team back by trying to control it too closely.
So ask yourself, do you set unnecessary boundaries for your teams? If you [...]

Are You the Worst Leader in the World?


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The question I am most often asked by managers is: ‘Why won’t they do what I want?’ This is usually followed by: ‘And why don’t they work harder?’
As leaders and managers, we often assume that, if our employees really wanted to perform better, their performance would just increase. We assume that people’s ability to boost [...]