Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

Business

Three Things a Leader Needs to Get the Mojo Back

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Three Things a Leader Needs to Get the Mojo Back
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Leading is challenging.

But it should also be energizing and exciting.

If you as leader have lost the drive you used to feel, take heart – there are three things you need to focus on in order to get back on top of your game.

In fact, if your actions don’t inspire, motivate, and empower, it is time to regroup.

Inspire

When your employees are inspired, great things happen. People follow inspiration. As you inspire, your workforce feels a sense of belonging and commitment, and they become more engaged and productive.

And, lest you think you must be charismatic in order to be inspirational, take heart. In a recent employee poll, traits such as humility, empathy, openness, and high regard for others were named among the 33 traits identified as being inspirational (Eric Garton – “How to Be an Inspiring Leader,” Harvard Business Review, April 2017 ).

Motivate

When you bring passion and positive energy to your workforce, you spread an infectious attitude that supports high morale and keeps stress at lower levels.

Incentivizing your employees to do their very best goes far beyond offering higher wages. Find out what motivates your executive team members (hint: each will have something different to share). Things like feeling a part of the company’s success, learning to move a career ahead, personal development to step into higher personal leadership, receiving acknowledgement and recognition in a certain way – these are just a few examples of what really motivates people.

Do this – and teach your team to do likewise with their own teams. You’ll create an incredibly motivated workforce and a higher level of retention.

Empower

Demonstrate trust. Clarify the ends instead of the means, provide them with any non-negotiable parameters, and then let them spread their wings.

Explore where you can delegate, outline your expectations as far as results, and simply be on hand for questions.

Don’t know where to start? Ask them. What projects or responsibilities might they like to assume in order to flex their leadership skills?

And here’s a question I use with my clients to help them think outside the box: If you decided to take a six-month sabbatical, what would you need to delegate in order to feel that the company could move ahead as per usual?

If you will work on these three areas, you will find that you have not only reanimated your workforce, you will also recapture your own drive and commitment to lead. A win-win.

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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What Should Keep a Leader Awake at Night

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What Should Keep a Leader Awake at Night
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As a leader, you are consumed with many moving parts.

These are some of the cycle of thoughts that keep you awake at night.

  • Holding on to good talent.
  • Keeping the business units aligned and performing at their best.
  • Increasing revenue while keeping costs down.

But what should keep you as a leader awake at night is a bit different.

Facing this issue head on will help you rest well, because it has a universal effect on all those areas that are the current causes of sleep deprivation for most leaders.

It has to do with moving into the future successfully. And there are three steps you can take that will help propel you forward.

The organization of the future is already here. It is yours, if you want to accept the challenge. Three things will help you set the right foundation so you can move forward with much greater ease. You’ll find them outlined below, along with some great reading materials to help you do so.

Three Ways to Help Move Your Organization into the Future

1. Assess your ability to adapt.

How effectively do you flex with change?

These days, it is no longer a question of coping. We work in a global marketplace, where a business shift in China means impact on business in Southern California. Agility is de facto a top focus for the leader. Do you find yourself resisting change or embracing it?

For more on a growth mindset that will help you sharpen your agility and adaptability, the following book will help: Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD.

2. Maximizing your talent.

At the team level, you should be asking yourself how you can empower your team to help you lead. You may already be great at empowering great talent, but have you thought about pooling their brain trust on issues you normally own as part of your bailiwick?

Begin to bring your executive team together on issues you normally take care of, and present these for discussion and learning. Not only will you be mentoring at a greater level for succession planning, you may also learn a few things that will help your decisions to become your best.

For more on “teams leading teams,” see the article “The Symphonic C-Suite: Teams Leading Teams” by Deloitte experts Agarwal, Bersin, Lahiri, Schwartz, and Volini.

3. How can you get ahead of the curve?

Can you actually predict trends before they happen? If so, your competitive edge will now take you firmly – and first – into the future.

Does this sound impossible? You can actually grow your visioning skills to make the “what if” a palpable tool for your strategic planning.

To flex your ability in this, begin by reading the book Anticipate: The Art of Leading By Looking Ahead by Rob-Jan de Jong, PhD. Expand your visionary capacity with practical tools provided by this Wharton professor to change your ability to stay ahead of the curve.

Here is what we know: the organization of the future is here. Whether we accept the challenge depends on continuously sharpening the skills to do so. Let me know how you enjoy these resources.

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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Three Ways Humility Can Make You a Better Leader

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Three Ways Humility Can Make You a Better Leader
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Rick Warren once said, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

In a business world where ego has often been confused with strength and vision, proposing humility as a leadership trait has, in the past, been difficult to accept. Yet today, we realize that in order to lead well and make impact, bringing out the best in others by putting their interests and the interests of the company first is paramount.

This requires leaving your ego at the door.

Top-down leadership is, in fact, outdated and counterproductive. In the business world, we have witnessed terrible situations where this approach has gotten out of hand, and ego has given way to hurting many people on a large scale: Martin Wintercorn and the Volkswagen scandal, Hisao Tanaka of Toshiba, Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharamaceuticals… (For more about this, see my article “Beware of Hubris Syndrome.”)

Through these situations and many other lessons learned, leading with humility is paramount.

Today, even when a company’s organizational chart still resembles a pyramid, the roles and responsibilities throughout the enterprise call for leadership at every level.

Ownership and autonomy are fostered up, down, and sideways throughout the enterprise. Accountability is still king, but the difference now is that it is mutual. Shared decision-making is embraced. A culture where the people come first naturally produces best outcomes because it promotes in the workforce the feelings of trust, purpose, motivation, and engagement.

Since humility creates the type of environment that is needed for the organization of the future, we must intentionally incorporate it into leading. Being selfless with the larger agenda of leading an organization and primarily concerned with the well-being of the organization and the people in it is what works.

Here are three ways your own leadership can become even more impactful with humility.

1. Stop micromanaging, and empower your people.

Where are you hoarding a “top-down” attitude in your leadership?

Do you find yourself reticent to delegate because others might not do it as well as you? This is an indication that you are not empowering your team – and this means you are short-changing the company. I’ve coached many executives and business owners who fear letting go. If this is you, come up with a plan to mentor so that you can effectively support the present as well as the future.

2. Listen and learn to model personal growth.

Keep yourself on an honest and supportive growth journey by joining or forming a group of like-minded leaders who are willing to share, introspect, encourage, and hold each other accountable.

Be open to the ideas and perspectives of others in your company and receive feedback as a gift and not a criticism. Modeling your own growth allows others to embrace their own development opportunities and fosters a strong and productive learning culture.

3. Admit your mistakes and course-correct.

Are you avoiding having to deal with a poor strategic move? Perhaps you have hired a key individual who has turned out to be toxic. Or it may be that you have turned the company’s attention to a new initiative that is damaging its ability to deliver services or products to your current customers.

If you are sending out messages such as, “That’s just the way he is – just work as best you can,” or “Once we get through this, things should settle down,” you are modeling avoidance.

Instead, model accountability to them and the organization. Decide on a plan to course-correct, and implement it. Show your people that it is human to make mistakes – and that it is true leadership to deal with them and learn from them.

Humility is not being servile or weak.

It is being strong and confident enough to keep your focus on the bigger purpose and all that goes into making this a success. And that is true leadership.

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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Man or Machine: Who Will Win in the Workplace of the Future?

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Man or Machine: Who Will Win in the Workplace of the Future?
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What’s smarter than a human being?

A group of human beings.

Putting our heads together to come up with brilliant ideas and implementation has been recognized for centuries as “brain-trusting,” and is well-known for the rich perspectives, problem-solving, and creativity it can generate.

But now that machines loom larger and smarter, will this mean that we lose brain trust to brawn?

The experts project a loss of 800 million jobs by 2030 to machines.

How will you remain viable and vibrant in the new age of artificial intelligence (AI)?

AI is currently viewed as both an exciting development and a terrible threat. The advances we are able to make today and tomorrow are critical to meet an ever-growing complex world. Yet, we also realize that what has previously been accomplished by humans can now be taken over, at least in part, by machines.

What does that mean for meaningful work for us and for those generations that succeed us?

Will we lose our workplace to the machine?

No.

In fact, work may become more meaningful than ever before – if you and your organization are prepared to meet it.

It is important to understand that we continue to design machines that can take over automated tasks and mundane, repetitive work. We are seeing this in the operation and support of factories and production lines, customer call operations, document classification, and other areas.

With this development, machines will indeed replace a large part of the workforce that has previously performed these tasks.

In addition, machines are now capable of performing other more complex activities such as those requiring the processing of data streams, real-time knowledge, etc. Again, machines will dominate in this particular arena.

Then what is left for us?

How can AI actually benefit and bring more meaningful work opportunities to the human part of the future workforce?

Here are three ways:

1. Opportunities for vertical development.

Instead of emphasizing hard skills and competencies, focus will be on vertical development: developing the ability to perform more complex and adaptive thinking and to “see” with a greater lens and make sense of a world growing in complexity.

Our charge will be oversight and management of machines, rather than performing the tasks.

Abilities required of us at greater levels will be adaptability, network thinking, judgment, and creativity. Acquiring these skills means more career opportunities and greater flexibility in work choices open to us.

The good news is that each of us has been given the seeds to develop vertically – and there are proven ways to develop it systematically.

2. Opportunities to support the need for belonging and growth.

Human beings seek to belong, and they seek growth.

The workplace plays a critical role in helping people to do this. Those organizations embodying a culture of collaboration and offering individual and group growth opportunities will support these needs.

Further, this will benefit the company by lowering employee turnover, and heightening engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Machines cannot create and support this culture – it is the people alone who are empowered to do this.

What does your company need in order to support this need for belonging and growth?

3. Opportunities to tap into collective intelligence (CI) to become the organization of the future.

CI is shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and collective efforts of many. And it is key to moving an organization into the future.

Gone is the hierarchical business model of one “general” at the top, several “sergeants” at the next levels, and many “foot soldiers” carrying out the tasks.

Instead, teams are leading teams, from top to bottom – to sideways. As leaders now demand greater leadership at every level, their workforces demand to have more voice and participation in leading the company forward.

We recognize the power of this collective, and welcome the rich brain trust it provides.

As we incorporate greater vertical development, a sense of belonging, and collective intelligence, this means we will have the ability to operate at a higher level of intelligence and meaning than we have ever experienced. And that is pretty exciting!

So where do we go from here? What’s your burning question or concern about man and machine in the workplace?

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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Three Ways Compassion Makes Your Business Better

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Three Ways Compassion Makes Your Business Better
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In a recent CBS This Morning interview, Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, expressed the importance of compassion in the workplace.

Regarding the organization of the future, Jeff said, “It’s about walking the walk… It’s about looking at different perspectives…it’s about those interpersonal or soft skills…that will set yourself, your team, and the organization up for success.”

To some people, this may sound like fluff.

After all, what’s love got to do with it?

How do you link compassion with success in a way that makes business sense?

First, let’s define what compassion is – and what it isn’t. A short definition of compassion is to have concern for the well-being of others. For more on this – and to learn what it isn’t – see my article on compassion and boundaries.

How does having concern for the well-being of others increase the bottom line?

Here are three ways compassion directly impacts your revenues.

1. Communication.

When compassion is absent from communication, it reflects a lack of willingness to walk in the other person’s shoes.

It is evidenced by little or no interest in hearing the perspectives of others, or in seeking to understand. It is also evidenced by a heightened tendency for reactive and judgmental thinking.

Poor communication can actually cost your company an average of $26,041 in productivity per employee per year. It can cost your managers the ability to perform the work and manage others; and it can cost you your leadership reputation.

2. Team and organizational alignment.

When compassion is absent from a company, teams and team members within teams work in silos.

Silos are responsible for missed deadlines, arguments over who is responsible for what, distrust, poor assumptions about others, conflict – the list goes on. The energy in such a business is negative and draining to the soul, and productivity is low as a result of it.

Do you consider yourself a compassionate leader? Be careful. Hubris Syndrome can creep up quickly, and you may discover you have actually compromised your leadership. For more on this, see my article: “Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?”

3. Competitive advantage.

Caring for others gives you a corporate edge. But when compassion is absent, it has been proven to compromise your employees’ feelings of safety and loyalty.

They doubt that learning, collaboration, and innovation are possible at your company and can shut down, which impacts the bottom line. Service quality suffers without compassion, and the employee’s desire to empathize with others and move beyond personal bias to form a team suffers as well.

It is time to identify and take action on strategies for the workplace that ignite compassion, because, as you see, love and results do, indeed, go hand in hand.

Inspired by the book, Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017, 272 pages)

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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