Executives derail
Leaders, Derailment happens. It is normal. It is human. And it comes with consequences for the organization as well as yourself. Research suggests that more than 60% of senior leaders and executives derail at some point of time in their career. Also, the greatest majority of these leaders, belong to the group of 20% in the workforce, who generate 80% of the company’s value. Just identifying those managers in the recruiting process does not do the job. It is all about selecting them, educating them to increase their awareness and actively manage their derailing tendencies. While basically everyone can derail, derailing characteristics are magnified through the lens of leadership. At the individual contributor level, impact will often be contained to the individual’s immediate function. At upper leadership levels, they reverberate throughout the organization and affect people and the organization at large. Again, awareness matters. Let’s explore the definition, causes [...]
Leadership 4.0: Are you ready?
Today’s business world is rather exponential than linear. Speed is increasing. Many changes are of disruptive nature. Things can be true, and at the same time they can be false. What is illegal in one country could be legal in another country of the global village. There is not only one solution to a problem but a multitude of possible solutions with no clear favorite inclusive of the fact that some solutions might even contradict each other. Things which you thought were secure can now change without warning. In short: We live in a VUCA world. The difficult thing for leaders is that leadership in a VUCA world has not yet been developed. Even worse, most of today’s leaders have been trained – at universities, business schools, on the job, by their mentors etc. – on leadership models, theories and instruments that stem from a disappearing world. What was [...]
New work needs empowerment
Leaders, Do you need to control everything in your business? Are your people excessively reliant on you asking your permission for every tiny detail? How do you empower your people? Do you give them credit consistently? Leadership of today is quite different from that of Caesar, Plato, the Wilhelminian time, or the post-war period. Today's leaders utilize power-sharing, trust, team-building, and empowerment. It is important to think through what empowerment means and how best to employ it so your organization can harness its strength. Empowerment sounds great, but leadership is principally about the human dimension so nothing is always simple. What is (psychological) empowerment? Empowerment is made up of four aspects: a sense of real meaning in one’s work, a sense of making an impact through the contribution you make at work, feeling competent about your capacity to do your work, and a sense you have freedom to make choices [...]
The Dark Triad or the fifty shades of gray in leadership
Leaders, How dark is your personality? Are you a manipulative person? Can you switch off your empathy? Are you completely obsessed with yourself? If your answer is yes, you might want to pay attention to your dark side. “Dark” leaders may be toxic but still be as effective as pro-social, self-controlled, and “good” leaders. Let’s explore. The Dark Triad refers to personality traits that are different, yet related. These are narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Having them makes a person difficult to manage. Taken together, the most powerful tendency underlying all three Dark Triad traits is a knack for exploiting others. What are the three traits of the Dark Triad? 1. Narcissism: Seeks praise This term came about because of the Greek myth of Narcissus, a young man who fell in love with his reflection after looking at himself in a pond of water. He became so engrossed in it [...]
Time to forgive
Leaders*, What are your strategies for releasing pent-up anger? How do you ensure you communicate from a place of empathy? On a scale of 1 – 10 (10 = all-time hero), how good are you at accepting people for who they are (including yourself) with all their peculiarities, imperfections, and flaws? The biggest barrier to growth, healing and progress is anger, both, on a personal and organizational level. Anger, revenge and blame are unproductive responses to trauma, harm and injustice that you or members of the organization may have experienced. They tie up energy in destroying rather than creating. Exceptional leaders constantly make a lot of mistakes, own them and learn from them. They practice, foster and enable forgiveness, though it often feels counterintuitive. Forgiveness is a universal human virtue that occurs in collaboration with other virtues such as compassion, humility, gratitude, hope and love. Forgiveness involves acknowledging and reframing [...]
A better person every day
You know, I always thought that as a child, I suffered the most. Recently I found out, every one of my siblings, thinks they suffered the most. With 4 children and countless babies (mom babysits until I was in my 20s), my childhood was always like an organized chaos. There was never a moment of silence. You learn to navigate through the noise and pressure and people around you, but yet I always longed to be alone. My dad and me hanging out and having tea at a roadside stall back home in Malaysia My father is a man beyond his years. In his 20s, he got married to my mom, by the time he was 32, he had 5 additional mouths to fill. He worked two jobs, and studied in the night to get certified in certain fields of his work. We kept moving cities and houses [...]