In this time of economic uncertainty, having transformational leaders is crucial to the success of our organizations.

Leadership is the ability to influence the thinking, commitment, and behaviors of others.
Transformational leaders are able to:

• Facilitate the proactive adaptation to change on the part of others;
• Understand and manage the relationship between the human dimensions of work and exceptional performance;
• Understand and manage a spectrum of people, competencies, and styles;
• Understand that the external results one produces is a direct consequence of one’s inner motivation;
• Have an in-depth understanding of one’s self.

Leadership/Management Support—A Personal Assessment

Instructions: Take five minutes to evaluate yourself in terms of your overall workplace performance in a leadership and/or managerial support role. Use a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest) for each statement with respect to employees under your supervision or those you work with.

1. I am skillful at facilitating both the professional development and personal growth of employees I lead/supervise.
2. I am comfortable working with people who have beliefs and values divergently different from my own.
3. I ensure an environment where high performance is expected and achieved.
4. I ensure, by measurement, a “worker-friendly” environment where employees experience work-life quality and balance.
5. I proactively engage in personal and professional growth.

For the item where you feel as if you rank the lowest, find a colleague or friend outside of work that you trust to give you honest feedback on  two to three Small Acts of Inclusion® might be able to incorporate immediately that would have an impact.

Innovations recommends our course Leading During Turbulent Times—The FuturePerfect Leadership Model as the first step in implementing positive change in the workplace. For more information on transforming your organization please contact us.

If you liked this self-assessment, you might also like our free High Performance Leadership Self Test at www.innovint.com

With the release of our free online empowerment program only a couple weeks away, I thought I would provide some tips on becoming more personally empowered.

1. Assess your present level of personal empowerment.  Honestly evaluate your present level of personal and professional mastery of your job by soliciting input from a broad spectrum of sources.
2. Assess the quality of your performance. Determine whether your performance falls below, meets, or exceeds expectations.
3. Assess your level of commitment. If your performance is below expectations and you are sufficiently skilled for your present job, seriously reexamine if you are committed to meeting the expectations of
your present job. If not, make plans for doing something else.
4. Determine the new skills you require. If you feel you are committed to meeting the expectations of your present job, write, in detail, the new personal and/or professional skills you require, based upon expanded
responsibility and accountability.
5. Acquire a mentor/coach to hold you accountable. Acquire a mentor or a coach to assist you and hold you accountable to your commitment, based upon the consistent results you produce.
6. Overcome your self-limitations. When you encounter a barrier, have your mentor facilitate you in overcoming it. Remember, it is ultimately your responsibility to take charge of overcoming your selflimiting
belief(s) by designing and performing challenging assignments.
7. Define a new challenging area of activity. If you meet or exceed your present job expectations, describe a project or an area of activity that you would enjoy which involves significantly expanded responsibility
in terms of the acquisition of new personal and/or professional skills.
8. Expect new learning opportunities to occur. Begin the project, utilizing and/or learning proven professional methods and knowledge. If difficulties or problems occur, apply steps 5) and 6) above.

I’ll have more on Empowerment in the coming days.

Danny

Ever heard the phrase, “good help is so hard to find these days”? Any HR manager or executive is familiar with the daunting task of trying to find the perfect fit for their company. Today’s workforce is more demanding than ever and every employee must contribute to the overall success of any organization. In response to this, Dr. Guillory released a white paper this week entitled The Age of Human Potential—Talent Management. This paper is the first part in a two part series on the subject. Dr. Guillory describes talent management as, “an initiative designed to source, attract, recruit, develop, advance, and retain highly competent employees.” In his white paper he proves the cost per benefit ratio of each stage of employee recruitment and retention.
The stages are:

• Sourcing – establishing a system and criteria for identifying highly motivated, multicultural individuals for potential employment.

• Attracting – presenting a compelling case to potential recruits that are interested in your organization.

• Recruiting – the collective effort of an organization to show a potential employee that his or her future is best realized by their employment.

• Developing – providing the opportunity and support necessary to an employee for their continual expanding potential.

• Advancing – providing the opportunity for employees to attain higher positions of responsibility, as a result of mentoring, coaching, and visible opportunities, in proportion to performance.

• Retaining – the result of the proactive, professional development of an employee.

Business objectives have continued to evolve over the centuries as technology presents us with more efficient work tools and more challenging tasks. Dr. Guillory shows this progression over time and suggests that every organization develop a talent management support system that continuously monitors the efforts of employee well being.

The current economic environment has resulted in many rethinking our organizations and how we do business.   However, returning to how things were in the past is not possible as the landscape has changed and will continue to change dramatically. To ensure long term viability, leadership must be able to project into the future and lead from the future, rather than being resigned to thinking in past paradigms.   This requires what at Innovations we call FuturePerfect Leadership .   Some of the steps that leadership and management can play in creating this environment include:
•    Create and promote the FuturePerfect vision
•    Create an environment of integrity and trust
•    Establish an inclusive environment where all associates experience “equity of opportunity”
•    Ensure opportunities for personal and professional development
•    Establish quality interpersonal relationships, communications, and problem resolution
•    Create an environment for work-life balance

The role of individual contributors might include the following elements:
•    Require, ensure, and design engaging work that is personally satisfying
•    Ensure that your work is aligned with the organization’s vision, mission, and objectives
•    Assume a natural leadership role among peers as greater delegation occurs
•    Design a career development plan inclusive of experiences and learning  you will require
•    Establish strong collaborative relationships
•    Personally commit to continuous learning and adding value
•    Design a plan for work-life balance

Assuming that the economy will turn around and that business as usual will be sufficient is not enough, as experience has already shown us over the last eight months.

Danny