A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

Have you asked yourself this question lately? I hope so.

But if not, why not? As a leader, you should be asking yourself this question with the same frequency you are asking, “what’s for dinner?” Doing so is motivating, keeps you focused, and helps you realize that every thing you do is being measured; by your boss, your customers, your shareholders, your peers, and if you are honest, the ultimate judge, your self.

“The effective executive focuses on contribution. He looks up from his work and outward toward goals. He asks: “What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and the results of the institution I serve?” His stress is on responsibility.”

These powerful words were written by Peter F. Drucker over forty years ago in The Effective Executive (affiliate link). Yet they remain so insanely relevant today.

By focusing on contribution and the impact you make each day:

• You realize you are a part of something bigger than a job in an office or a cube.

• It opens your eyes to the fact that everyone around you is relying on your performance and your contribution for their success (an outward vs inward view of your own success). For if you do not contribute your share as an individual, then of course, the whole suffers.

• It leads you to the question, “What development do I need?” You’ll learn the skills and abilities that you need to acquire to help you make a bigger contribution.

• It will raise your bar, drive you to innovate, spark your ambition, and create inspiration not only for yourself, but also everyone you interact with.

To quote Drucker again, “to focus on contribution is to focus on effectiveness.” So I implore you to begin asking yourself, “What can I contribute?“

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

Every now and then it is important to take a personal inventory of your skills and abilities. I don’t mean an end of the year surface-level, quick, “hey, I’m great” type of thing. I’m talking about an honest, candid evaluation of yourself as a leader. A deep look inside.

Every time I have done this over the years, I also ask myself, “What skills do I need to develop to be more successful in the future?” There are five must have leadership skills on my list this year. They are:

Learner

Every leadership book speaks about how important it is for a leader to be able to handle and manage change (when it happens). Here’s a new flash — everything now moves so fast that the new norm is a constant state of change. The only way to keep up is to have an insatiable desire to learn new things and the ability to synthesis that learning into actions that will better prepare you and your organization. You must be a learning every day.

Champion

Unless you are the CEO or President, just about every project, initiative, or new business endeavor you propose is likely to be met with skepticism. That’s ok, it’s healthy, just be prepared for it. Consensus build every chance you get. You need to make things happen by continually gaining the support of those around you.

Futurist

An eye toward the horizon, knowledge of emerging trends, understanding of the impact of economic changes, these are just of few of the reasons it’s important to be forward looking. It is your responsibility to see the new openings in the market, the potential obstacles, and prepare yourself and your organization to deal with them.

Web Savvy

It’s a do it yourself world now. It’s time for leaders to have an extremely high level of comfort with all the web tools surrounding social networking like URL shorteners, monitoring applications etc, in addition to the actual sites themselves – like Twitter, LinkedIn etc. I’d even go so far to say that a basic knowledge of HTML is going to be a prerequisite for any job in a few short years. Get ahead of the curve and know more about the Web than your employees do.

Fear Nothing

Fear is crippling. Fear holds you back. Fear prevents risk taking. Fear stymies creativity. Fear prevents you from stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Fear Nothing. Especially failure. Get over the societal conditioning that failure is a negative event. Take every failure as an opportunity to be a Learner. And grow.

Fear is an emotion that can be controlled and directed. Change your mindset and Fear Nothing.

What are your must have leadership skills for tomorrow?

Post Update April 9th, 2010: This post was originally published on February 12th, 2010 as the Four Must Have Skills For Tomorrow’s Leaders. On March 4th, 2010, I read an article titled, “Fear Nothing” written by Adam Singer on his blog, The Future Buzz. It changed my thinking. So much so, I believe Fear Nothing is a skill that as leaders we must develop.

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. A former employee and I were having a discussion regarding delays on a project. We were continually missing deadlines. As I was trying to understand why, it became evident that the project manager was more worried about being liked, than about the project getting completed on time. It brought to mind one of the best lessons I have learned as a leader.

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.” General Colin Powell

When I shared this advice, it hit him like a ton of bricks. The look on his face was priceless. He couldn’t understand it. It just didn’t compute. I think he said something like, “If that is the best advice you have received, what is wrong with you?” I laughed and then turned to the source of this advice and shared the following with him.

“Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It’s inevitable, if you’re honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you’ll avoid the tough decisions, you’ll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you’ll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset.

Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally “nicely” regardless of their contributions, you’ll simply ensure that the only people you’ll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.”

There is so much truth in these words, no? Think about it – if being liked is your priority, than would you ever make a decision that would put that in jeopardy? I’m not thinking so. And that’s just not good business. So if you are choosing to “be liked” and allowing that to be your decision making compass, then you are failing as a leader. Being liked is important, but it’s not why you were hired, was it?

If you are choosing to “be responsible” by confronting issues and delivering hard messages, than you know 9 times out of 10, that person is coming back to you within a couple days, expressing their gratitude for helping them become more. It’s this commitment to helping your employees grow and get better at what they do that leads to them liking you.

Be a leader. Be responsible and the liking will take care of itself.

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

When Growth Stalls is one of the top three business books that I’ve read in the past five years. I’ve placed it on my bookshelf right next to Good To Great by Jim Collins and Hug Your Customers by Jack Mitchell (the other two). This week’s Leadership Minute is a book review of When Growth Stalls. My advice, Read This Book!

“Flat or backwards. If that’s the case, your company has stalled. And when you are in the middle of it, it is extremely difficult to see. It’s never pretty. Small company or Fortune 500, it doesn’t matter, once the vicious cycle starts, it takes significant change to turn things around.“

These were the opening words Steve McKee, author of When Growth Stalls, offered at the Philadelphia MENG Chapter event, Monday, January 25, 2010. McKee discussed the book, fielded questions, and provided commentary on current business events demonstrating what he calls in the book, the seven factors of stalled growth.

Why you must read book.

1. 15% of companies stall every year. That number jumps to 50% every decade.
2. It’s research based. Like Collins’ Good To Great, McKee’s seven factors for stalled growth come from analysis of hundreds of stalled companies, including the exclusive Inc 500.
3. McKee, the writer. This book flows with the grace of Seth Godin and the advice of Peter Drucker.

What you will learn.

1. The Seven Factors Of Stalled Growth – Filled with examples from the research, McKee eloquently lays out three external factors (Economic Factors, Aggressive Competition, Changing Market Dynamics) and four internal factors (Lack of Consensus, Loss of Focus, Loss of Nerve, Marketing Inconsistency).
2. The Marketing Equation. McKee offers one, overarching solution of looking at a company’s business proposition and provides a strategy framework to create lasting, sustainable growth.
3. Understanding the above, a different lens with which to view your company and its current situation – stalled or not.

Favorite cover blurb.

“Don’t be fooled by the title-this book isn’t just for stalled companies. McKee covers important principles that all companies should be thinking about, especially new or fast-growing companies.”

-Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

C’mon- you must have to have something critical to say.

Nope. Though, I will say that I may have utilized the research (including the Inc. 500) based nature  of the book on the cover.

That’s it – if you read When Growth Stalls, chime in with your opinions and thoughts.

Disclosure: My relationship with Steve McKee (@WhenGrowthStall) is one of the many new business relationships that I have formed through Twitter. I have interviewed Steve for B2Bbloggers.com Twitter #B2Bbookclub. I purchased my copy of the book and would do it again.

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

I know it’s probably not the most politically correct way to express it, but the fact of the matter is, there is a high likelihood you have *slackers* in your corporate ranks. People who are in the office 8-9 hours a day and do about 2 hours worth of work. If there is any leadership pet peeve that I have, it’s *slackers*. As one of my mentors used to say, “these people are simply stealing from us, FLAT OUT STEALING!”

I’m offering these tips because now more than ever it’s vitally important to have people working for you that are engaged, committed, and willing to act like they own the place. The last thing any of us can afford is employees that are doing less than their part to earn the privilege to work for you.

Let me repeat that … earn the privilege to work for you.

That’s correct…it is a privilege that you have given that individual their job. The responsibility is theirs alone to continue earning the right to come back each day.

Here are some tips to help you spot a slacker among your ranks. It can actually be a lot harder than you might think.

First, you have to know where to look for slackers.

If 10% are the superstars and another 10% are on the short list out the door, that leaves you with 80% of your employee population. I know you are thinking that’s a big percentage, but that’s just the way it is.

Then, you need to know how slackers look.

Your best slackers will actually dress for success. They understand that blending in helps them go unnoticed (thus making slacking easier). So the point is … it could be anyone. Looks alone will not identify them.

So, you need to know **what** to look for. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. A good slacker is a master of keyboard shortcuts.
   • Ever notice when you walk up to somebody’s desk and the screen super quickly changes to Word, Outlook, or Excel. That’s because a good slacker knows that handy keyboard shortcut: ALT + TAB. You can almost guarantee if the screen is changing, that previous screen was not work related.
2. Keep your eye out for mirrors (the small round, wide angle view kind).
   • The only people who need a mirror like this at their desk are people trying to hide something. And often, it is used to know when to use ALT + TAB.
3. Body language / Facial Expressions.
   • When you walk up unexpectedly, slackers get startled. I don’t mean jump out of your seat startled, more just caught off guard. They show this by adjusting themselves in their seats, quickly reaching for a pen, or something to make them “look” busy. Oh, and of course, look for that “holy crap, I can’t believe you just walked over here” look on their face. It’s a dead giveaway.
4. Slackers don’t volunteer for work projects.
   • Not surprisingly though, slackers do show a special interest in helping organize social events or running errands. Don’t let this movement fool you for real, meaningful productivity.

That’s what I look for to spot a slacker. I’ll save my advice on how to deal with slackers for another Leadership Minute. In the meantime, I would love to hear your tips on the subject.

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to lead in the 21st century workplace.

I got the idea for this post after reading Fred Wilson’s Productivity Hacks blog post yesterday. In it he shares three tips for improving your productivity. He gives credit for the tips to Mark Suster who posted his Productivity Hacks on Tuesday.

Here are three Leadership Hacks to help you build stronger relationships with your team members.

1. Say “Good Morning” to each of your direct reports … every day.

While this may sound trivial, make it a point to walk around and say, “Hi” each morning. This small, simple act of checking in shows your interest, builds trust, and means more to an employee than you realize. Simply consider it an early morning deposit in their emotional bank account.

2. Look your employee in the eyes when they are speaking to you … always.

You’re busy. In most cases, when an employee comes by, you’re either in the middle of 10 things, rushing to get a report done, or on your way out the door to a meeting. With all this going on, your employee starts talking, and if you are like me, 8 out of 10 times, you keep right on doing what you are doing.

Let’s be honest, there is no way one can fully listen under those circumstances. Show your employees the respect they deserve. Stop what you’re doing, look them in the eyes, and listen.

3. Don’t answer the phone when you are in a one-on-one meeting.

This hack, similar to the last, is about fair, respectful treatment of your employees. I had a boss early in my career that could never miss a call. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. If your time is limited with your employees, work hard at making sure you avoid distractions when the scheduled time is theirs.

That’s my three hacks … what do you think? Do you have other leadership tips or tricks to share?

A regular column devoted to developing the skills necessary to survive in the 21st century workplace.

Let’s face it, social media can be distracting, very distracting (if you let it). It has an overwhelming ability to cause inefficiency in productivity – leading to missed deadlines, forgotten tasks, and even worse, forgotten promises. It is certainly the main reason 54% of companies ban Facebook and Twitter at work.

However, at the same time, each day we are learning and experiencing tremendous benefits from getting engaged in social media activities and becoming social businesses. Here are three tips to keep you focused and help you stay ahead.

1. Discipline, Discipline, Discipline

Create planned times in your daily routine to conduct your social media activities and stick to it. Block it out. Do nothing else during that time. If possible, that includes not answering the phone.

2. Create Targets For Each Week And Use A Scorecard To Track Them

Before you can effectively do number one, you first need to set your objectives. I’ll share mine as an example. Each week I have a plan to complete the below activities and time scheduled Sunday night to complete my scorecard.

• 2 LinkedIn Anwsers
• 5 Blog Comments On Other Blogs
• 2 posts per week here (Minimum)
• 2 Business Week Exchange Article Submissions
• 3 Facebook Posts
• 3 LinkedIn posts
• 35 Tweets through @b2bbloggers

You’ll notice I have specific targets for each activity. Having achievable targets is vital to managing personal productivity because it lets you know when to stop one task and move to another.

3. Do One Activity At A Time

Listed above are seven independent activities that are all social media activities. Personally, one of the things I have noticed that causes me to become inefficient is mixing the activities. I’ll be in the middle of writing a post and the next thing I realize, I am commenting on a post I read for research. That’s not disciplined – that’s wandering.

Now, of course, there are instances that it makes sense to mix the activities. The point is – be careful not to get lost in an endless amount of clicks and links…and look back after 30 minutes has gone by and have nothing accomplished.

That’s it. Till next time, tell me some of your tips for keeping focused and increasing social media productivity. Let’s help each other be more productive.