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Leadership
Visualizing the Payoffs of Employee Engagement
A great deal of attention has been paid to the matter of employee engagement in recent years - and for good reason: it has been well established that employees who are engaged with their work and their organization contribute far more of their discretionary effort than employees who are not engaged or, worse, disengaged. This paper visually illustrates the nature of this payoff. [Contributed by Fred Nickols, Managing Partner, Distance Consulting LLC.]
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Glossary of Terms for Planning, Leading and Managing
From Belief to Vision, with Driver, Delegation, Outcome, Output, Strategic Thinking and 36 other useful definitions in between. This is designed to provide a basis for informed development, and help parties to initiatives avoid unsafe assumptions by finding common ground in their terminology.
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Developing the PA Role and Leader-PA Relationship
The purpose of a leadership PA role is to enhance the efficacy and worth of leadership practices aimed at achieving organisational purpose and long-term intentions. The role should facilitate a strategic (transformational) focus and minimise involvement in directing everyday (transactional) operations. If you have not yet specified, planned and methodically coached for this purpose, but have left to chance the development you want, this article will support a more constructive approach.
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Delegation
As a leadership practice delegation involves allocating, entrusting and supporting others to carry out work towards fulfilment of our responsibilities. It enables us to maintain a broad strategic focus and make wise use of current capacity while simultaneously developing it. There are five common problems which interfere with this apparently simple process.
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Mergers: Fusion or Confusion
A merger-in-progress of two large service groups is struggling to achieve its intentions. What's happening has many lessons for everyday leadership, management and self-management practices, beginning with this: Well-honed, generic personal and group management operating systems can provide clarity where there is confusion, and procedural certainty when we don't know what the heck we should do next. When there is no map, they can serve as a reliable compass. Sadly, some leaders operate with neither map nor compass.
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Enhancing Performance of Community and Not-for-Profit Groups
Community or not-for-profit groups are often full-time or part-time workplaces. Commonly, their potential far exceeds actual performance, a challenge often regarded as inevitable and therefore rarely addressed. While it may be predictably normal, much of the waste is needless and preventable. Three articles address these issues, with much relevance to workplace groups elsewhere:
The Challenge »
A Generic Diagnosis »
A Generic Prescription »
Building Leadership Connections
There are key differences between "good relationships" and "real leadership connections". Those who are or would be leaders, are wise to make the development of both "good relationships" and "real leadership connections" very important priorities - perpetually - so that they never become urgent matters. Here are some useful observations on this topic from Gregg Thompson, a leadership development specialist, and "some start here, now" ideas from us, to help put them into practice.
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Planning and Managing Improvement Initiatives
Before launching an improvement initiative, work with your colleagues to identify the underlying assumptions you hold about continuous improvement. It's an uncommon approach, but one that can significantly limit the number of initiatives that end up in the organisational swamp. I've constructed a list of useful generic assumptions for this purpose, to help you start the process. In this article I also discuss other often-overlooked considerations for saving time and heartache with improvement (change) projects.
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Lead, Manage and Strengthen Leadership Practices
Inspiring commitment to accomplishing the organisation's Primary Task is a vital part of the leadership role - but only half of it. This 13-page article distinguishes leadership from management; defines everyday, exceptional, and meta-level leadership; and discusses the need to balance leadership responsibilities, hold the focus and stay in role, communicate influence, and make incremental improvements within a methodical leadership development plan.
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The Wrong Thing . . . Better
The best outcome from the current economic crisis may be fundamental change in the way we arrange organisations. What we are doing with and within them is just as unsustainable as the wider economic system within which they (sort-of and used to) work. For evidence of this, look no further than the widespread and increasing wall-to-wall busyness of those who try to lead and manage them. That any of us believe we can somehow be exempt from its effects is a major part of the problem and one of its chief causes. How can we begin to engage with these issues?
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Governance & Operations – Vital Distinctions
Governance and Operations are two different but closely-related organisational functions. The meaning and means of each and responsibilities for them should be specified in the organisation’s founding documents and employment contracts. In many organisations both unclarity and unwise practices are common. This article distinguishes wise practice, with simple illustrations and practical steps to avoid problems and guide improvements where necessary.
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Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking
There are very many ways of approaching strategic planning, a process designed to focus an organisation and engage the hearts and minds of those who are to implement its intentions. This document outlines the stages and practical steps of a process I have used and continually improved over 25 years in my work with client groups. The guidelines can be modified to suit both Big Picture planning for the whole organisation, and smaller strategic initiatives.
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Encouraging the Heart
How we encourage the heart and nourish the spirit of our co-workers, leaders and managers, is a vital issue in every organisation. What might our own pushing the envelope of encouragement do to our organisations, to others and to ourselves? This article includes “Thirteen Ways to Encourage the Heart Everyday” – practical suggestions for making make a start.
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Clarify and Test the Working Assumptions
Assumptions made and assumed to exist elsewhere, or held unawarely in our sub-conscious, hold inherent dangers inherent for collective ventures including teamwork and meetings, working-parties, committees, project work, planning and problem solving. This discussion of actual workplace events is intended to raise awareness of the phenomenon, to help prevent misdirection, confusion, conflict, blocked progress, inappropriate conclusions, unwise plans and initiatives.
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All material on this site is © 2007 Tom Watkins.
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