JohnKWhitehead & Associates

BLOG

How Do You Inspire a Shared Vision?

What is your vision for your organization? – Do you know? Can you state it seamlessly and flawlessly? What can a “Vision” be? Well Kouzes and Posner give us this; “a vision is an ideal and unique image of the future for the common good”. To share that vision, we should “envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities” and “enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations”. How do we do that? This week I start the next series of vlog posts on just that. This week, how often do we talk to our direct reports (or anyone for that matter) in our organization about future trends and those might influence how our work gets done?

 

John K Whitehead & Associates coaches individuals and organizations in becoming more effective by helping them improve their interpersonal communications, emotional intelligence, and resiliency.

You can read my blog at https://johnkwhitehead.ca

If you have enjoyed reading these posts, please Follow Me – and if you sign up for my Blog I will send you a copy of my eBook, “What Are These Things Called Soft Skills?”

What Is Your Leadership Philosophy?

In this week’s Vlog post – What is your “leadership voice”? What you care about, what defines you and what makes you who you are? These are the questions Kouzes & Posner ask in The Leadership Challenge as it relates to your Leadership Philosophy. It begins, as I continually say, with self-awareness. If you are not clear on that, what your values are? (as we discussed in my last vlog), how can you develop and be clear of you own leadership philosophy? This is your voice, and it allows you to be that leader others want to follow and learn from. Let me know what you think…

John K Whitehead & Associates coaches individuals and organizations in becoming more effective by helping them improve their interpersonal communications, emotional intelligence, and resiliency.

You can read my blog at https://johnkwhitehead.ca

If you have enjoyed reading these posts, please Follow Me – and if you sign up for my Blog I will send you a copy of my eBook, “What Are These Things Called Soft Skills?”

What Are Your Core Values?

If I were to ask you right now what your Five Core Values are, could you rhyme them off or would you need a few minutes to think about what they are, if at all? In my practice I am continuously surprised to learn how few people have taken the time to work on what their values are and how they show up for them. In this week’s vlog post I start out by talking about Kouzes & Posner’s 360 assessment tool, the LPI360 and how it is used to measure how frequently leaders demonstrate the Leadership Challenge’s 30 behaviours. One of these is Values and how the leader builds a consensus around a common set of values….

 

John K Whitehead & Associates coaches individuals and organizations in becoming more effective by helping them improve their interpersonal communications, emotional intelligence, and resiliency.

You can read my blog at https://johnkwhitehead.ca

If you have enjoyed reading these posts, please Follow Me – and if you sign up for my Blog I will send you a copy of my eBook, “What Are These Things Called Soft Skills?”

How Often Do You Ask for Feedback on Yourself?

How would you answer this question “How often/frequently do you ask your direct reports on how your actions affect their performance?” Interesting question, right? Maybe a bit scary as well. Kouzes and Posner in the Leadership Challenge pose this question, “how can you know that you’re doing what you say if you never ask for feedback about your behaviour?” (pg. 82). Asking for others perspective, through their lens of how you are leading gives you an opportunity to grow as a leader. Watch this week’s Vlog for more on this provocative idea.

John K Whitehead & Associates coaches individuals and organizations in becoming more effective by helping them improve their interpersonal communications, emotional intelligence, and resiliency. 

You can read my blog at https://johnkwhitehead.ca 

If you have enjoyed reading these posts, please Follow Me – and if you sign up for my Blog I will send you a copy of my eBook, “What Are These Things Called Soft Skills?” 

 

Promises, Promises: Building trust in leadership

Following through on promises and commitments you make as a leader is Kouzes & Posner’s 3rd behaviour in their practice of Modelling the Way from the book “The Leadership Challenge”. In fact, doing what you say you will do is a critical leadership step. Many of us will have known bosses who say one thing and then do another and wonder why their employees then don’t follow through on tasks they have been given. As leaders we set the standards, we are being watched.

John K Whitehead & Associates coaches individuals and organizations in becoming more effective by helping them improve their interpersonal communications, emotional intelligence, and resiliency.

You can read my blog at https://johnkwhitehead.ca

If you have enjoyed reading these posts, please Follow Me – and if you sign up for my Blog I will send you a copy of my eBook, “What Are These Things Called Soft Skills?”