What is an Executive Coaching Service?

An executive coaching service provides professional coaching to maximize performance in the workplace. Workplace coaching is a solution focused, result oriented process and involves an external workplace coach.

It is a great way to attain a certain work behavior that will improve leadership, teamwork, communication, conflict resolution, goal setting and planning.

It can involve one to one coaching of employees or groups of employees with the contribution of the employee’s manager and HR. It entails a mixture of counseling, clinical and organizational psychology.

How Can an Executive Coaching help me?

They can help you identify problems that may be holding you back from performing at your best. It can help you develop personal and interpersonal skill.

At the personal level it can help you learn and develop personal abilities such as self awareness – how do others perceive you and how do you perceive yourself. This will help you identify and correct unhelpful behavioral traits or thoughts that could be limiting performance or leading to conflicts.

Self management – learning how to deal with stress, learning from the feedback of others, time management and goal setting. They should also help you develop better working habits that that result in greater job satisfaction and higher self motivation.

Behavioral abilities are not innate talents and are typically learned through life experiences. You may have excellent technical expertise but may not have been taught these important personal and interpersonal skills. Most people make do with what they have learned randomly through experience rather then what has been demonstrated to work best. Improving your abilities in these areas can dramatically enhance your performance and job satisfaction.

What will an Executive Coaching Course Involve?

The first stage will be an in depth interview to identify any problems, what you hope to achieve at the end of the coaching and identify the obstacles in your way.

A professional consultant will not lecture or tell you what to do. They are there to listen and provide advice and help you to adopt effective work habits, assist you in developing your abilities while helping you to develop the right thinking and behavior that maximizes work place performance. They should empower you by helping you to identify problems and find solutions yourself. Often just having someone to listen and talk to helps you unleash your own problem solving skills and creativity.

Executive Coaches should provide positive support and feedback while offering occasional advice to an executive in order to help them recognize ways in which they can improve their own performance in their organization.

What is a CEO

The abbreviation CEO usually stands for Chief Executive Officer or less commonly Corporate Executive Officer. It is the highest paid position in an Incorporated company. The Chief Executive Officer normally reports directly to the Board of Directors and Shareholders of the company. He sometimes is the top person on the Board of Directors and sometimes just their answer person.

To rise to the top and become a CEO it helps if you are doing something that you really like, if you don’t then you’re not going to be that successful at it. You have to enjoy the field you are working in and welcome the challenge of working with people you may have disagreements with. Running a successful business involves utilizing the right people with the right skills and placing them in the right positions. It is also important not to micro-manage the tasks of those under you but give them the freedom to solve problems using their own methods.

Arthur Carmazzi, considered one of the top ten leadership coaches in the world teaches that “as a leader you must allow others to fail… If your into control, into making sure everything is perfect it is not going to happen and therefore you will not develop leadership in others. So you must allow others to fail”.

By allowing others to fail you can help them learn from their mistakes and where they went wrong. Learning through failure is an effective ways of becoming a stronger leader.

How to become a ceo quickly?

So how long does it take to become a ceo? If your young then you have a greater chance of rising to the top and becoming a CEO quickly in the tech sector, particularly the internet field.

More public-company CEOs age 40 and under lead organizations involved in technology products or services than work in any other industry.

Examples include the following:

Mark Zuckerberg

Created Facebook when he was just 19 years old.
Estimated Net worth: $3.2 Billion

Matt Mullenweg

Created WordPress when he was 19 years old
His Estimated Net worth: (Unknown)

Tom Anderson

Created Myspace when he was 23 years old.
His Estimated Net worth: $100 Million

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Created Google when they were just 24 years old.
Their Estimated Net worth: $18.5 Billion Each

Jerry Yang & David Filo

Created Yahoo when they were just 26 and 28 years old
Their Estimated Net worth: $2.2 Billion Each

Chad Hurley and Steve Chen

Created Youtube when they were 28 and 27.
Their Estimated Net worth: $300 Million Each

Pierre Omidyar

Created Ebay when he was 28 years old
His Estimated Net worth: $8.8 Billion

If you start out in the tech field this can help executives in related business, such as retail. Michael Soenen, 36-year-old chief of flower seller FTD, recalls becoming CEO of his company’s Web division in 1999. “Internet CEOs were young by nature, and the success we were having made me a logical choice,” Soenen explains. “Having run that business successfully, becoming CEO of FTD Inc. was a natural extension for me.”

Many of the youngest CEOs achieved their position by launching their own companies from scratch. If you want to be a CEO quickly start a company and call yourself a CEO. Becoming a CEO does not always have to involve a long arduous rise to the top.

How to become a CEO of a company?

To know how to become a CEO of a specific organization it is useful to understand how major CEOs in that organization got there, their background, education and what they have in common.

For example take banking. How to become a CEO of a bank?

Some of the top CEO bankers include:

Lloyd Blankfein – Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Goldman Sachs

• Born in to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York City
• Attended Harvard University, in 1978, Blankfein received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
• Blankfein earned a total of $53.4 million in 2006, making him one of the highest paid executives on Wall Street.

James L.  Dimon – CEO and chairman of JPMorgan

• His grandfather, a Greek immigrant from Turkey, was a broker and passed on his knowledge of the business to his son and partner.
• He majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University, before earning an M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School

John Mack

• Mack was born in 1944 the sixth son to Lebanese immigrants.
• Mack graduated from Duke University in 1968
• Worked at several firms around Wall Street before starting his career at Morgan Stanley in 1972

John Stumpf – Chairman, President and CEO of Wells Fargo & Company.

• Received his BS degree in finance from Saint Cloud State University and his MBA in finance from the University of Minnesota.
• Joined Norwest Corporation in 1982 as senior vice president and chief credit officer for Norwest Bank

Many Bank CEOs share a similar history in that they often graduated with degrees in law, finance or business sometimes from prestigious universities such as Harvard.

Many of these CEOs spent time in wall street before becoming bank CEOs or were CEOs of major cooperation’s before becoming bank CEOs.

A mark of a good leader is to be able to provide consistent motivation to his team encouraging them to attain excellence and quality in their performance. A good leader is always looking for ways to improve production and standards. Here are six management skills you can develop as a leader in working to create a quality effective team.

1. Observation

This is an important aspect that often gets neglected due the demands on a leader’s time and schedule. Observation and regular visits to the work environment are a priority and should be scheduled into the calendar. Observing employees at work, the procedures, interaction and work flow is foundational to implementing adjustments to improve results. To have credibility, a leader needs to be seen and be known to be up to date with what is happening in the work place.

2. Monitor Employee Performance

Employee performance needs to be monitored in mutually accepted ways. Policies and procedures need to be clear. Conferencing should be on a regular basis and not just when there is a problem. Assessments and evaluations should not be merely all formality or viewed a necessary paperwork to be done and filed away. Individual and group conferencing should be undertaken not only to monitor performance, but with the expectation of on going professional development and support. There should be frequent encouragement and clear criteria for on going goals both for the group and individual.

3. Implementation of Professional Development Programs

A good leader evaluates weaknesses and provides training and development strategies to strengthen the weaker skills in the team.

4. Demonstrates Working Knowledge and Expertise

Good leadership comes from a place of strong knowledge and experience of the production and process leading to results. If a leader does not possess all the expertise and knowledge personally, then regular consultations with experts involved in the departments should be held. This is important in order to maintain an accurate and informed overall picture.

5. Good Decision Making

Good leadership is characterized by the ability to make good decisions. A leader considers all the different factors before making a decision. Clear firm decisions, combined with the willingness and flexibility to adapt and adjust decisions when necessary, create confidence in the leadership.

6. Ability to Conduct and Evaluate Research

On going review and research is vital in order to keep on the cutting edge in business. While managing the present to ensure on going excellence in product and performance, a good leader is also able to look towards the future. Conducting and evaluating research is an important way of planning and being prepared for the future.

Excellent leadership is always pro active rather than reactive. By developing these six managerial skills builds a solid foundation for success.

There are 7 Vital Principles that make Good Leaders Great. Knowing what they are and how to cultivate them is essential for success.

First and foremost it is necessary to appreciate that good leadership is about building positive, strong and cooperative relationships. In that light what is outlined below pertains to the building of relationship strengths.

The Seven Principles of Great Leadership are:

1. Learning to Listen:

If a leader is isolated from what is going on around them they’ll have shut themselves down to the flow of vital information about what is going on in the organization. Apart from simply being aware of the day to day operations it is imperative to be able to listen to what is “not” being said i.e. the general mood state of one’s employees and/or peers. The mood state can significantly affect, even undermine the optimism, enthusiasm and morale of the troops. Keeping a finger on the pulse of this subtle but important piece of information will help the great leader to know well in advance when the wind has been taken out of the sails thereby helping them take swift corrective action.

2. Learning to Trust Your Self

Self doubt is readily perceived by one’s employees and cannot only undermine their confidence in you it can also spread like a wild fire through the organization leading to loss of focus, enthusiasm, and trust in the overall mission. The ability to trust one’s self, feel and be perceived as exhibiting an internal, unwavering, confident steadiness inspires confidence and optimism in others.

3. Learning to Empower Others

With power comes a feeling of responsibility that often makes the leader feel like they must do everything themselves. Unfortunately this often overwhelms them and under powers the organization. It also neglects the valuable resources and strengths that exist in the powerful synergy of individuals working together as a high performance team. A great leader knows and trusts the strengths of their employees and how to nurture self confidence in them so that they can fully express their creative potential.

4. Learning to be Resilient

Resilience is defined as the ability to not let the negativity in. Much like the metaphor of “like water off a duck’s back” a great leader manifests what to some may appear as a superhuman ability to deflect any and all stress from themselves. This entails cultivating a state of inner emotional strength and vitality that can help them weather any storm. As the captain of the ship the great leader must be able to steer the organization both in good and bad times effortlessly and confidently without wavering emotionally.

5. Learning to Make the Difficult Emotional Decisions

All of a leader’s decisions ultimately affect many other people as well as the vitality and integrity of the organization. Hence the ability to make difficult decisions entails being able to navigate the quagmire of one’s internal emotional concerns about the effects of such decisions on others. A good leader knows how to make decisions that takes into consideration the livelihood of all concerned. This means being able to perceive and appreciate the consequences of one’s decisions on the lives of others while at the same time having the inner strength, confidence and courage to move ahead for the best good of all.

6. Learning to Take Responsibility

A good leader realizes that they have been charged with significant responsibility for the vitality of the organization and ultimately for the lives of the individuals that are a part of it. Too often the bottom line takes precedence over the fact that the employees are the engine or life blood of the organization and that neglecting their welfare will severely cripple any bottom line. In this light a good leader recognizes their role and responsibility to those who work in the organization and exhibits an unwavering concern for them.

7. Learning to Communicate Effectively

Relationships that leave out the ability to communicate effectively are doomed to fail. Communication skills however often start with the ability to be open and receptive to the attitudes, ideas and opinions of others as well as the ability to empathize and understand another’s circumstances. When these fundamental building blocks are in place the probability of conflicts, misunderstandings and lowered performance are significantly reduced.

These 7 principles of Good Leadership can be cultivated only by leaders who recognize that a strong and successful organization depends on their courage and ability to develop themselves emotionally first.

A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Michael Andrew received his MBA from Suffolk University and his Certificate in Advanced Management Studies from Babson College.

A recognized thought leader who applies and offers practical insights for business professionals, he is the former head of the Leadership Institute with Rockwell Automation and regional head of Management and Leadership Development with Digital Equipment Corporation.

In the following interview on Fox news Mike discusses his book and the key chapters on thinking like a CEO and acting like a leader.

The following is a summary of the key points in the video and some of the chapters of his book:

Treat issues coldly, people warmly.

That’s the difference between leadership and boss-ship. Its dealing with the issue head on but doing it in a respectful manner. One example he gives is president Reagan and Tip O’Neill. Those two disagreed vehemently on so many issues but they did it in a very respectful way.

Enhance your know-how and know-who

In today’s knowledge era it’s very important to keep enhancing our know-how, but just as important as enhancing our know-how is our know-who and our know-who is our network of relationships. Its people that we know that we can call to get answers, to help us make a decision.

Have the wisdom of Columbo (to ask the ‘dumb’ question)

In business have the confidence and wisdom to ask what may appear to be a dumb question. An example that is given is of inspector Columbo.

Three reasons. Having the confidence and wisdom to ask questions means you are not missing out on important information necessary to your function as a leader.

Secondly it creates an example to others to ask questions that they may not otherwise have asked out of embarrassment gaining knowledge that may be necessary to their role in the organization.

Thirdly creativity is essential to becoming a leader or CEO. Often this means thinking outside the box and asking questions which may at first seem dumb or ridiculous.

Have the courage to be candid

If people are well and truly your biggest asset you’ve got to be honest with them and you’ve got to be candid with them. This also goes right back to treating the issue coldly and people warmly.

Stay one step ahead

That’s all about being pro-active. Staying one step ahead gives you an edge over others and makes it appear that your much more informed of the subject then others. Satchel Paige said “don’t look back, someone may be gaining on you”.

Show others how much you care

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Customers and clients are unlikely to forget if you show them that you care. This could involve little more then a phone call. This is where social and emotional intelligence plays a part.

Transcript of the video interview below:

Frank: Joining us this morning with a advice on how to be a successful leader and deliver results in 09 is Michael Andrew. He’s the author of how to think like a CEO and act like a leader, practical insights for performance and results. A big name but a great book, Michael welcome aboard, happy New Year.

Michael F. Andrew: Thank you frank, good to be here.

Frank: Tell us why did you write the book and give us a little bit about your background as well.

Michael F. Andrew: Well I started my career in finance and I got my MBA and post MBA degree. About 20 years ago I went into the leadership and executive development field and I had experiences working with senior leaders all over the world. Both inside large companies and within my own consulting practice. What was evolving and percolating was putting all my lessons learned and knowledge gained in a book. So I wanted to write a book that did two things. One that increased the readers comfort level with their business acumen, their sense of business. That was the how to think like a CEO part but also give the reader practical insights that we can all apply day to day to be consistently more effective.

Frank: Yes and you don’t have to be a CEO, these are kind of life’s lessons as well which is great.

Michael F. Andrew: Absolutely, actually the book is geared to anybody that works for a living

Frank: That’s all of us last time I checked.

Michael F. Andrew: Exactly!

Frank: Well lets jump in Michael. You have some great insights here. First separating issues and personnel. I’m too nice sometimes but you had a good point I thought.

Michael F. Andrew: Well that chapter is called “Treat Issues Coldly, People Warmly.” You know something Frank, we can do both. They are not mutually exclusive. That’s the difference between leadership and boss-ship. Its dealing with the issue head on but doing it in a respectful manner. One example I always think of is president Reagan and Tip O’Neill. Tip was from Massachusetts – speaker of the house – liberal. Reagan was our president – conservative. Those two disagreed quite often on so many issues, vehemently on so many issues but you know something they did it in a very respectful way. And they were great buddies at the end of the day, great role models.

Frank: Enhance your know-how and your know-who

Michael F. Andrew: Well, you know since the beginning of time man has always had to enhance and develop their know how, whether it be hunting, the cultural era or the industrial era. In today’s knowledge era it’s very important to keep enhancing our know-how, but just as important as enhancing our know-how is our know-who and our know-who is our network of relationships. Its people that we know that we can call to get answers, to help us make a decision. And when I look back at all of the leadership programs that I’ve ran for a lot of these major cooperation, the executives valued the new things that they learned, their know-how. Enabling them to look their business in new and different ways. But what they really valued was their know-who. The expansion of their relationships and networks inside the cooperation and outside the cooperation.

Frank: Absolutely, and I guess being a CEO you think your kind of on this peddlestill but its ok to ask a dumb question right.

Michael F. Andrew: You know I have a chapter there called “Have the Wisdom of Columbo”. Do you remember detective Colombo from that TV show. He would scratch his head, wear his wrinkled coat and ask all these dumb questions to the murderer and the murderer always thought he had the wool pulled over Colombo’s eyes because he was asking these dumb questions but every dumb question got Colombo closer to the core and proof of who the murderer was. Now in business it’s having the confidence, not only the wisdom but the confidence to ask the dumb question. How many times have you been in meetings when people might say, “You know Frank, that was a great question” when really it was a dumb question, or “you know something Frank, I wanted to ask that question”. Have the confidence to ask the dumb question.

Frank: What also creates a precedence so they won’t be afraid to ask another question somewhere down the road if its an important one or whatever the case may be.

Michael F. Andrew: Exactly, and I always say when I got my MBA the number one thing it did to me, it gave me confidence, a certain confidence to ask those dumb questions so it served me well.

Frank: I liked this one. “Just be candid and direct. Its ok if you’re a CEO you’ve got to tell people sometimes. You have to be harsh. You’ve got to be… I don’t like that. You have to change.

Michael F. Andrew: That’s a perfect way to state that frank. Its tough being candid but that’s why I think we call it work. Jack Welch wrote a book. A best selling book called winning. He had a chapter devoted to “The biggest dirty little secret in business is the lack of candour in business”. I think if people are well and truly your biggest asset you’ve got to be honest with them and you’ve got to be candid with them. By the way that goes right back to treating the issue coldly and people warmly.

Frank: Absolutely, and stay one step in front ahead of everything and show a little love I guess.

Michael F. Andrew: Stay one step ahead. That’s all about being pro-active and I know in the business that I’m in im on conference calls every day throughout the week and you can tell when people come prepared to these meetings and conference calls. I always say if you just spend 10 minutes getting prepared for the meeting you’ll probably be 10 minutes more prepared then the next person. It reminds me of Satchel Paige when he said “don’t look back, someone may be gaining on you”.

Showing a little love. The other part of your comment. There’s a saying, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. And I think of my father. He was a foot doctor. I assume technically he was a good one but what made him successful was that his patience enjoyed talking because he would talk to them invariably about any topic which was of interest to them.

Frank: Yes, I heard a story the other day. Someone called Mike Milbury. He used to be the general manager for the islanders. Someone said that he would call seasoned ticked holders, you know, a couple each week just to say thank you. You know if your on the other side of that phone call its like “thank you so much”.

Michael F. Andrew: Its an amazing thing isn’t it. That epitomizes “good job Mike Milbury”. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Frank: Well mike, all the best with the new book and have a happy new years as well. The book once again is called “How to think like a CEO and like a leader”. Mike Andrew thanks again.

This short video gives an idea of what it takes to be a leader. The video stresses that it is only the relatively few that possess leadership skills in all areas needed to be a CEO.

They are usually highly motivated, high achievers who are passionate about their job. They are also able to control their egos and allow others to contribute to the company without micromanaging others.

Transcript of the video below:
I would characterize myself as being sort of the accidental CEO. I started my company but really I don’t think in a small company when your pretty much the whole company to start with you’re really much of a CEO. You sort of grow into it.

When my company passed a certain size we eventually had 50 full time employees and another 200 hourly part time employees. It was a big job. Best really when you have to develop your CEO skills. I would characterize myself as being sort of an accidental CEO.

I didn’t know when I started that one of the things I tried to do over and over again was using the skills of a professor and I expected my company to be sort of collegial and would make decisions together. That’s not how it works. The CEO’s role is to make the decisions with the council and with the input of other people. So you really learn on the job, you learn as you go.

Well I needed a job and if you’ve been a college professor your not very good at working for other people. So I think that’s probably the principle reason why I did it. I’m not a terrific employee and I eventually learned how to be a successful CEO.

Well it’s interesting, in large companies you can think of it as being a career path where you start with the company and move up and then once you get to that level you move from company to company where the opportunities open up. There’s really not a career path for the CEO. It really is a long gruelling sort of race and only the relatively few who have all the skills it takes to do it, ultimately get the job or keep it.

Its sort of a combination of people who have great will and personal passion and are high achievers but also are able to control their own egos and recognise that once you become a CEO your really working through everybody else. It’s not what you do its what other people are willing to do for you and for the firm.

If you’re planning a CEO career there are questions you should ask during the recruitment process and interview. In this video Prof Joseph Bower outlines ways of developing your leadership skills prior to a career as a CEO and the questions you should ask during an interview.

Joseph L. Bower is Professor of Business Administration, has been a leader in general management at Harvard Business School. An expert on corporate strategy, organization, and leadership, he has devoted much of his teaching and research to challenges confronting corporate leaders in today’s rapidly changing hyper-competitive conditions.

Here is the interview with Marshal Goldsmith entitled ‘Developing the CEO Within You’”.

Transcript of the interview below:

Paul: Hello Im Paul Michelman director of content for Harvard business digital and our guest today is Joseph Bower, Professor of Business administration at Harvard business school and author of “The CEO Within: Why Inside Outsiders Are The Key to Succession Planning”. Joes thanks for joining the prgroam.
Joseph: Paul, my Pleasure

Paul: Ok, our mission for today is to help aspiring leaders to prepare themselves to be strong CEO candidates in the future but before we dive into the specifics can you explain to us what an inside outsider is.

Joseph Bower: Sure, an inside outsider is a manager that has grown up inside the company. Developed there but somehow or other hasn’t drunk the cool aid. Has retained objectivity, has perspective on what’s happening in the world and can understand the need for change in the company.

Paul: Ok, Thanks. You know in your Harvard business review adaptation of your book how important it is for aspiring leaders to take responsibility for their own development from the very start of their careers. So to help guide that process you’ve developed a series of questions for individuals to ask themselves to make sure they are on the road to the corner office.

So lets begin with those questions you suggest leaders ask during the recruitment process. For instance an obvious starting question why are you being hired?

Joseph Bower: Right, you want to ask, you want to get a good understanding of why this company is hiring you. Obviously they want you to do some work in the short time but is this a company that hires people to develop and grow over time. Is there a career path, are there career paths. Or are you basically cannon folder to do the job this year and we’ll see what happens.

Paul: How do you get at the answer to that question? You should overtly ask the employer. Should you be asking other people?

Joseph Bower: Well there are a lot of other questions you can ask. How are they going to help you grow? What pattern of assignments are you going to get? Are you going to have time to learn. Is this a place where you will be running all the time and Do do do do do. What kind of support are they going to provide you. Are they people that are actually going to help you. There are companies that will talk about this. Others this will be the first time they heard of these questions. That’s revealing.

What kind of training do they provide? When your getting out of school last thing you want to think about is going back to school but the truth of the matter is continuing education is a great thing. Does the company support it?

Really important if your goal is to run a business how early can you run the business. Is this a company that’s organized so that there are lots of pieces of the business that are small and you can get a chance to try your wings or is this a place your going to be doing analysis all your life. The first is what your looking for. A place with lots of businesses to run.

Paul: So Joe, how specific an answer can you reasonably expect to that question.

Joseph Bower: Some companies would organise their pitch around those type of questions I have just asked. Some companies have really thought about that.

So the next phase now that your on the job you’ve developed another series of questions to help shepherd your development further. The first sounds like an obvious one. Do you meet your numbers? At the end of the day its great to talk about growth and development but you’ve got to perform. You cant get into the game without developing a reputation for meeting your commitments. So that’s very important. But there are other kinds of things. If you’re a person who is early recognized as someone who helps others. Do you develop other people. Is working with you a step up for them. Well that is a huge thing in your own reputation. How do you get on with your peers? Are you so competitive that they don’t trust you or are you someone that they really welcome. That’s a big deal.

How do you manage up? One of the most interesting things is we think about bosses are people who are going to help us. That usually means when your boss sees you coming they are going to say, oh here comes a problem. They are going to ask for something. Think about what a difference it makes if you can actually help your boss. So managing up is a big issue and how your going to help the organization. That also means learning about what it means to manage at higher levels of the organization. Finally I would say are you transparent. Or are you someone that gets a reputation for spinning what they do. Basically if your going to be a leader you probably want to get a reputation for being pretty straight.

Paul: Does that mean being brutally honest. Can’t you still tell a good story to talk up what your doing or what your team is doing.

Joseph Bower: Yes but what I think managers really respect is someone who will get right to the point and if there is a problem say that you’ve screwed. This didn’t work out. Here’s what we are going to do about it, not some tap-dance.

Paul: Ok, The next phase of the questions focus on developing yourself. One question I thought was particularly poignant is are you developing a network that expands outside of your own division.. Its really interesting that most managers when their developing focus on the people right around them and they literally don’t get outside of their own organization. The more you get out the better. Outside the division, outside the company.

Its interesting some people choose to get to know their customers. Get to know their vendors. You can even talk to union people, my God, and you might learn something. So those kinds of things. Do you know people in the community who aren’t in your business. May not even be in business. Their in other parts of society. Its interesting how much you can learn when you work for the community or when you work for the red cross or when you work for a local school or any of those things you meet other kinds of people and guess what that’s how you begin to develop a view of what’s going on in the world other then the received wisdom inside the company.

Paul: So these are all hedges against company think

Joseph Bower: right yes, its also a way of developing yourself. Those organisations outside, non profit organizations will usually give you responsibility earlier then you get it at your own company.

Paul: That’s interesting. Were not just talking about civic good, were not just talking about being in the community. We’re really talking about management development.

Joseph Bower: Yes developing yourself as someone who can contribute, who can lead.

Paul: Ok, final phase of the questions leaders should ask themselves. Focus on leading a balanced life

Joseph Bower: Well, I mean I have to tell you when I worked with middle managers. People running particularly significant pieces of the business one of the questions they always ask is how do I do all of this and take care of my family. You’ve got to take care of your family. Who are the people that are going to stick by you during difficult times. Who is your mirror who is going to tell you the truth. The higher you go the more you are going to hear what you want to hear, not what will really help you. It takes a lot of management of the calendar. One of my favourite friends starts the year by putting on the religious holidays, then the birthdays for the children and so on. Its surprising how much he can do even though he’s leading a whole different set of obligations.

Paul: Great advice, thank you very much for joining us today.

Joseph Bower: Your very welcome, thank you.

This video stresses the importance of social intelligence and emotional intelligence in determining good leadership and organizational success. Goleman explains the difference between emotional intelligence and social intelligence and how to develop your emotional/social intelligence.

Daniel Goleman is an author, psychologist, and science journalist. He is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller. For twelve years, he wrote for The New York Times, specializing in psychology and brain sciences.

Here is the interview with Daniel Goleman entitled ‘Social Intelligence and Leadership

Transcript of the interview below:

Diane: Hello im Diane Coutu, senior editor at Harvard business review and im delighted today to have as my guest Dan Goleman. Dan is the psychologist known around the world for his expertise in social and emotional intelligence. He’s also the co-author of the Harvard business review article ‘social intelligence and the biology of leadership’. Dan welcome to the program

Daniel Goleman: Thanks it’s a real pleasure to be here.

Great to have you. Dan, we’ve invited you because we wanted to talk about social and emotional intelligence and how they effect organizations and leaders. So lets just start at the beginning. Emotional intelligence – What is it and why is it important for us?

Emotional intelligence refers to how we handle ourselves. Are we aware of our feelings, our passions, the things that turn us on, the things that turn us off. What makes us effective, what gets in our way. Also how we manage our emotions. Do we let things interrupt our ability to focus, to get work done effectively or not. Empathy – recognizing other peoples emotions. Knowing how the other person sees things. How their feeling, and using that all to interact with people effectively.

You know your work has changed how leaders and businesses do their work around the world. Can you think of a leader who has changed how he’s done his work or how she’s done her work based on your insights into emotional intelligence.

Well you know I hear about hundreds but I can’t name any. Erm.. I can think of a very highly placed executive who was hearing from direct reports that things weren’t going so well. The messages came for example in the form of people leaving, as well as a lot of grumblings. It turned out that when he really faced what was going on people were saying “you know you just don’t listen”. You just tell us what you think. You say you want to hear what we know and we know a lot, but you don’t really care about that.

What he had to do was get better at the social intelligence ability of listening, of tuning into other people. It’s a real problem for many executives because of course you know a lot but you don’t know everything. But because your the boss people defer to you so they start listening but the really excellent, the outstanding leaders, are people who first listen, and get other people to say what they think and what they know and then put that altogether for a higher order integration, that’s real leadership. That’s what he had to learn. Through coaching he was able to change and his business performance and the performance at his unit was much much better afterward then before.

Diana: So the level of a leader’s emotional intelligence affects a leader’s performance

Daniel Goleman: We have so much data now, about 10 years accumulated data from organizations of all kinds showing that there’s a direct correlation between the emotional intelligence of leaders at every level and how that organization performs by what ever performance metric you want to use.

Diana: Well but it seems to me that leaders often think they have more emotional intelligence then they do. How do you begin to assess your level of emotional intelligence?

Daniel Goleman: Actually I think we all think we have more emotional intelligence then we do. One of the most brutal ways is to ask your teenage child, but at work what you can do is ask other people because it turns out that we ourselves are not the best gage of how we’re impacting other people. But other people if you can get them to be candid can tell you what your strengths are, and we all have them and what you can get better at and that’s the most interesting, valuable information because that’s where any leader can get a bump in improvement. by getting better at listening as that executive did you can become a more effective leader and therefore because you depend on other people for your success by getting better at listening to them, helping them develop, helping them do their jobs well, the whole organization benefits.

Diana: Dan, you talk about emotional intelligence and I’m very curious how you got from that to social intelligence.

Daniel Goleman: Well emotional intelligence when I first wrote about it was prompted by me by a new breakthrough in brain science and our understanding of the emotional centres of the brain and how that effects our ability to think well. It turns out that when we’re upset it hampers our ability to process information, to think creatively. We fall back on over-learned primitive behaviours, it makes us dysfunctional. But if were passionate about what were doing, if were motivated in the throw of positive emotion we think very very clearly. So there is an immediate obvious implication for business there and I wrote about that.

My new work on social intelligence has been stimulated by the same thing – Big breakthroughs in brain science. Now their not just studying one brain and one body and one person but two – the interaction. We’re finding out that this is the key to why a leader like Herbert Kelleher of Southwest airlines was so spectacularly successful in growing that airline. We have been looking at video of Herb Kelleher just walking down the hallway of lovefield in Dallas and its though there was a circle of good feeling radiating around him wherever he went. Everyone, passengers, personal, passers by, all of a sudden lighten up and beam because he was someone who engaged people, who was positive and let you know that he was tuning into you, and was doing it with such positivity that it was contagious for you.

Diana: Now how about leaders that do not have that natural inborn instinct. How can they use your insights in emotional and social intelligence in order to improve their leadership expertise.

Daniel Goleman: First of all for leadership its social intelligence that our data is showing counts the most. Social intelligence is being able to tune into other people, to read them, to know how they are thinking about things, what their feeling right now and using that to communicate effectively with them, and the good news is that even though we learn our habits – for example, what kind of listener you are. We learn those early in life. We can change them at any point if we are motivated, if we know what to do and if we have a little help. So there is an easy five step process basically for enhancing social intelligence abilities in a leader.

First the question to ask yourself is “do you care”, “are you motivated”. Second, get some feedback. You’re actually probably the worse person to judge where you need to improve. You need to ask the people around you in a way that they can be candid, they can be honest, and that’s often with the 360 device where they anonymously rate you. You don’t know who said it but you’re getting the truth. You look at that profile and you identify your strengths, your weaknesses. Where can I get better? Where can I get a bump? Then you make a learning agreement to yourself to do it in a better way at every naturally occurring opportunity. If you do that for a few months you will see real change.

Diana: So how can a company use social intelligence in order to increase organizational performance?

Daniel Goleman: So many companies are doing that now. I just spent the morning with a group where a national insurance company, a global pharmaceutical company, a world famous medical centre. Their all doing the same thing with emotional intelligence. Their using it to enhance the effectiveness of their leadership but also to change the culture. And the way their doing it is integrating it into the HR function. Their trying to hire people who have these abilities already. That was the strategy that south-west used. They look for people that are like little Herb Kelleher’s and it worked great, it worked beautifully for them. Their promoting these abilities. It becomes part of how you evaluate it and part of what’s looked for in taking people to the next level in the organization. They are also putting a lot of effort into individual development to help everybody grow these abilities to a greater strength.

Diana: So if we were going to go back and sum up for our audience today you would say the difference between emotional and social intelligence is…

Daniel Goleman: Emotional intelligence really has to do with self mastery. How you handle yourself and it makes outstanding individual performers. There are so many people in the world of work that are excellent. But their excellent because of their own efforts and they have very good discipline, very good motivation, they have drive. These are individual abilities. But when it comes to leadership your success depends on every one else being effective so you need to be successful by influencing, persuading, developing, growing, inspiring and motivating other people. That’s the social intelligence ability. Requires empathy, and requires skills and interaction and that’s what make s great leader.

Diana: Dan, one of the problems that companies really have is figuring out how to hire people because it’s so difficult to hire people and know what their emotional and social intelligence level’s are. So how do you go about trying to find little herb Kelleher’s?

Daniel Goleman: Well first of all if your looking for a Herb Kelleher type you have to expand the criteria because Herb was a unique. He was extremely , extroverted extremely up. But social intelligence doesn’t always look like that. One of the sure signs of social intelligence is rapport. You feel comfortable with the person. You feel they are paying full attention. You feel they are really listening to you, they are really attuning, their really empathizing. We know what that feels like. We feel felt. When your with someone like that you have chemistry. That is one of the sure signs.

Diana: Daniel Goleman, thank you very much.

Daniel Goleman: Thank you too, it was a great pleasure

Diana: Thank you

In this video Marshal Goldsmith answers two main questions. Firstly how leadership has changed over time and secondly how to influence upper management.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders get even better – by achieving positive, lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.

Here is the interview with Marshal Goldsmith entitled ‘Ask the Coach”.

Transcript of the interview below:

Paul: Hello I’m Paul Michaelman Michelman director of content for Harvardbusiness.org and I am delighted to be joined today by executive coaching guru, teacher and author Marshall Goldsmith. Marshal writes the ask the coach blog for Harvardbusiness.org and his latest book is “What got you here wont get you there”. Marshal thanks for joining us today.

Marshal: Very happy to be here

Paul: Marshal, in your ask the coach blog you address questions from our readers as well as other managers you encounter about their biggest challenges on the job and what I would like to do today is look at a couple of questions. Here is the first.

How is the role of a business leader changing and will the qualities of a great leader be different in the future or is great leadership timeless?

Marshal Goldsmith: And the answer is both of the above. How is the role of a leader changing?, erm, we did some research on this interviewing 200 specially selected high potential leaders from around the world and asked them how’s the leader of the future different from the leader in the past. Some will answer the same and will probably be the same 100 years from today. Things like integrity, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, communicating a vision. You can pretty much guess a lot of these characteristics have always been important for leaders.

On the other hand we found 5 characteristics that were different for the future then they were in the past. These were changing dynamics of leadership. The first one is called thinking globally. If you look at the leader of the past, leadership was largely domestic; it was regional and perhaps countrywide. Not really global for most leaders. Today even leaders that deal in a domestic market have to look at global implications in terms of suppliers, in terms of support staff. So global thinking came out as a big change.

Another big thing that came out as a difference is appreciating cross culture diversity. In America historically we had virtually no diversity. It was largely white males. Then we came into diversity dealing with women, perhaps minorities in America. Today we are looking at cross culture diversity which is a whole wide element of what does it mean to work with different religions, different cultures, and different peoples from around the world. That’s also a change in the world of leadership.

The third one is called technological savvy. Now that doesn’t mean that every great leader has to be a technician. What It means is you have to know how technological impacts your core business. You have to be able to hire people that are technologically gifted and you have to be technically competent enough to really navigate in the new world.

Then we came up with two others. The next one is building alliances and partnerships. Historically leaders often didn’t work in the area of alliance and partnerships and today it’s a common part of the job. A great example is IBM. In the old days IBM had no alliances and partnerships. They were proud of the fact that everything was just IBM. Today in IBM they have a different alliance or partnership every day almost or every week. Just a constant changing in terms of alliances and partnerships. Building all kinds of different relationships. Then the final one we came up in our research is called “sharing leadership”. Peter Drucker said “The leader of the past knew how to tell, the leader of the future knows how to ask”. A big change in leadership today is historically the leader knew more then the direct reports. There was an apprentice model. The direct reports would work up then learn more, no more then the next direct reports and evolved.

Today most leaders manage people called ‘knowledge workers’. What’s the definition of a ‘knowledge worker’. They know more about what they are doing then their boss does. When we manage people that know more about what their doing then we do we can’t tell them what to do and how to do it. We have to ask, listen and learn and leadership becomes a shared responsibility.

Now I mentioned these 5 in my blog but I got a great post from one of our readers and he came up with an idea that I think looking back on our research kind of got left out. Its called ‘learning agility’. Really the leader of the future e is a person who is continuously learning and growing and as the world has changed this learning agility has become more and more and more important.

Paul: Marshal I hear one kind of common theme. The notion of openness and the need to be more open. Open to the ideas of other people. Open to learning new ideas. Open to learning about new cultures. I think we all like to think we are very open but we are probably not. How do we train ourselves to think differently?

Well you know I’m going to give you an even bigger challenge. How do we train ourselves to act differently? Because if you think differently but you don’t act differently it doesn’t help a whole lot. That’s basically what I do in my day job. I teach leaders how to learn and what I teach leaders is the importance of asking for input. How can I be a better leader. How can I learn from you. How can I help the team.

Peter Drucker really instilled in me the value of asking which was a big theme of his work. Asking and getting feedback, responding to people, following up, learning. I did a research study with 86,000 respondents and I showed that leaders who asked for input, listened, responded in an open way, follow up in a disciplined way invariably are seen as more effective leaders. Leaders that don’t respond, don’t follow up typically don’t get better.

Paul: lets move on to a different question that has recently been submitted to your blog. This one has to do with influencing these leaders we have just been talking about. Here is the question that came in.

The biggest challenge that I face at work is not managing my team. Its dealing with my boss and upper management. Any suggestions.

Marshal: Well effectively influencing upper management is a critically important topic and I noticed this is important because it touches everyone. You don’t have to be a in a leadership role. It touches every employee and every company that has to make a difference.

A couple of guidelines: The next thing I’m going to say is going to sound incredibly simple. Its amazing how few people ever existentially get this point. Every decision in the world is made on the bases of one variable. Who has the power to make the decision. Not who’s pretty, or right, or good, or fair. Its who has the power to make the decision. Think of the school child coming home. “Its not fair, the teacher gave me a C, I deserved an A”. Well you didn’t sell to the teacher. The teacher had the power to make the decisions. Grow up and live with it. This is the way life works.

Now as obvious as that sounds its amazing how few people ever get this. The first thing to do in effectively influencing up is, think like a great sale person. Think like a salesperson and you have to realise that it is not their responsibility to buy. It is your responsibility to sell. And when you start thinking like a sales person you get much more effective. Next you sell to the higher level. You don’t sell to your needs you sell to their needs. So many people and organizations basically whine. “You need to give me this”, “Why”, “I need it”. That’s like a sales person saying “You need to buy this”, “Why”, “Well I want to collect my commission”. Who cares, that’s not their problem.

You also have to realise when you’re influencing up your taking away resources from somebody else when you’re asking for resources for yourself. You’ve got to be sensitive to your peers. What am I doing to my peers when I’m asking for these resources for me. How is this going to influence them. Prepare for objections. Develop a cost benefit analysis. Do your homework. Sell to the bigger needs of the business. Then when you go to influence up you may not win but you will dramatically improve your odds of success. And finally if you cant sell it make peace. Sell what you can sell make peace with what you cant sell.

Finally never stick it to the boss if you can’t sell it. Never go down and stay “that idiot told me to tell you”, especially if you are in middle management. I always teach middle managers this. If you’re a middle manager, you stab your boss in the back in front of your direct reports. What will you teach your direct reports to do. Stab you in the back when they disagree with you. So you treat your manager with the same courtesy that you would like to be treated with if those roles were reversed. Just a couple of quick guidelines.

Paul: So you said one thing that struck me. At the same time that your trying to exert your influence you said you also need to be cognisant of the needs of your peers and the fact that you may be taking resources away from them. Seems like a pretty delicate balance.

Marshal: It is a delicate balance. Something very important – lets say X is critically important to your peer, Y is minimal important to you. If you get Y and your peer looses X, be very sensitive about asking for Y. Because one day the roles are going to be reversed and your going to need your peer to help you. So its important when we influence up not just to think about our management. Also think about our peers. And by the way let me expand this concept a little bit. Sometimes it isn’t influencing up with just your boss. What I’ve jus talked about applies to any situation where you have to influence people without direct line authority. So if you don’t have direct line authority you have to sell. You may not want to sell. You may not feel the need to sell. If you want to make a difference you have to sell because they don’t have to buy.

Paul: Marshal Goldsmith, thank you very much.

Marshal: thank you

Paul: for more of Marshals ideas visit his ask the coach blog at harverdbusiness.org.

Arthur Carmazzi is considered one of the top ten leadership coaches in the world. He provides the following advice for leaders wanting to develop and sustain leadership at all levels of an organisation.

As a Leader Allow Others to Fail

As a Leader allow others to fail. If your into control, into making sure everything is perfect it is not going to happen and therefore you will not develop leadership in others. So you must allow others to fail.

We as human beings learn through our failures, we learn through the things we do and try. We as humans do have an ability that others sometimes don’t see. Sometimes we just don’t even get a chance to show that ability. Chances are that that has happened to you. There has been a time when you know you can do something and you just don’t get the chance to do it. There are other times when you think you can do something and it just doesn’t quite work out but you learned from it.

As human beings we are developing constantly to become better. But unless we are allowed to fail, unless we are allowed to take that risk and unless we are allowed to try and implement our own ideas, are own methods we will never be able to install that in others and we ourselves will not become great leaders.

Clarify the Constraints
In order to allow others to fail intelligently clarify the constraints, time, budget and manpower. Ask yourself what they have to work with?

Do not spoon feed them and never assume you know more than they do even if it is true. Ask them questions on how they would do it.

These people will get lazy if your going to start spoon feeding them. If they know you have the answers they are just going to go to you for the answers. If they actually need to make a decision for themselves don’t spoon them. Let them come up with the ideas. Ask them questions. Don’t give them the answers directly. It will not help them to develop and it will not help them to become better leaders.

Show respect without judgement
Show respect for their methods, ideas and plans without judgement
People process the information differently. They have different emotional drives. They have different ways of perceiving things. Let them try it their way. Don’t judge. Let them try. Be respectful of their methods.

Assist them to Identify their Failure.

If they fail, assist them to identify why that failure is a stepping stone to their success..

Now if they do fail at least help them to identify what that failure meant. Because the failure itself essentially is a stepping stone to a greater success. Make sure they know that. Make sure that when they do fail that its not a bad thing. Make sure that that failure is re-framed into a perspective of a stepping stone to success. That means one failure means that they are now closer to a greater success. To being better leaders. To being more efficient and effective. Each failure can help them to be better. So essentially each failure can be a success. Let them believe that. Let them know that. You as a leader develop that mentality, that attitude of accepting failure as a positive thing and not as a negative thing so long as you learn from it.

Be supportive of their effort
Be supportive of their effort and encourage them to take action. In order to fail intelligently make sure that they know that they are allowed to make mistakes so that they will take more responsibility. When they do learn from their mistakes make sure that they know that it is designed in order to help them to be better in the future. Be supportive in their failure and be supportive in their failures. Develop their confidence by showing them where that failure has a positive impact.

Install Trust
So why are these two keys important. Trust!

In order to develop leadership at all levels of an organisation you must install trust. Trust is not going to happen if you say ok, its ok for you to fail and the moment they do fail – wham, you grab these guys and tell them how stupid they are. How much they cost the company.

Trust comes from allowing people to make mistakes that will help them to be better. Now this does not mean let them to slack off. It means allowing them to take responsibility, to take risks, and be better equipped to handle failures in the future.

If you develop this trust you will also develop their respect. If you develop their respect you will cultivate success. Why?. Because everybody wants to be successful, every single one of us. We desire to be successful, we desire to be trusted and we desire to be respected. When you develop a sense of trust people will want to earn that trust. When you develop a sense of respect, people will live up to those expectations of that respect. With the proper guidance that you give, the attitude of trust, the attidue of respect and the ability to feel successful will develop a strong leadership ability in others.

So if you want to create leadership at all levels of you organisation create the desire for each individual to want to become a great leader. That happens with trust because when people feel that you trust them they will want to earn that trust. When people feel that you respect them they will live up to the expectations of that respect. If you guide people to ‘fail’ successfully, the emotions behind the feeling of success as an individual, as a leader will not only help the people themselves to feel successful but it will change the attitudes and the perceptions of everybody in that organisation. Start failing successfully today!