Despite some opinions, you can find joy at work. After all, your team is working together to accomplish a common goal and when you succeed you should feel happy. Melanie Katzman joins Kevin to take away the excuses that we can feel good and do our best at work. Melanie is a clinical psychologist and author of Connect First – 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning, and Joy at Work. She has structured these simple, actionable ideas moving from respect to leveraging your impact to connect you to your organization to your community. By creating bonds, you enhance productivity and impact just more than the bottom line.
In this episode, Melanie shares examples of ways to connect including 1. The importance of “got it.” 2. The value of sitting back. 3. Why we should eat together.
It is an age-old question that I have been asked hundreds of times. Are leaders made or born?
I'll give you my answer, my rationale, and why it matters to you!
Additional Resources
Today’s episode is the result of a challenge that I issued earlier this year – asking viewers to give me a word, any word, that I would then tie back to leadership.
And today, I am comparing leadership and airplanes.
From This Episode:
Whether you care to admit it, you have struggled. Whether it be school, in a relationship, or professionally. It is these challenges we face and how we overcome them that define who we are and offer perspective. Kevin sits down with Bobby Herrera, co-founder and CEO of the Populus Group and author of The Gift of Struggle: Life-Changing Lessons About Leading. Bobby understands that struggle precedes our transformation. That still does not make the struggle any easier. Bobby and Kevin discuss how we reframe the way we think about struggle and use to help us lead. He shares stories from his leadership journey and challenges us to share our stories (regardless of our level) to give our team the why; to connect. Now you all can figure out the how together.
In this episode, Bobby discusses: 1. Struggle. 2. Getting to the culture you want. 3. Importance of coaches and mentors. 4. A leader’s role in development.
In this episode I'm talking about the relationship between power and leadership - and no politics!
Additional Resources
We held our family reunion this year at my farm in Michigan, and like many of the events in my life this summer (and always), there are many leadership lessons that I took away. Learn more in this episode.
Tweet it out: We all need family – whether blood or not – for strength, stability and relationships. Who is your family? @KevinEikenberry
From This Episode:
Data shows that by 2030, 75% of the workforce will be made up of individuals born between 1981-1996. We often refer to this generation as Millennials and they are often described as lazy and entitled. Chris Tuff is the author of The Millennial Whisperer: The Practical, Profit-Focused Playbook for Working With and Motivating the World’s Largest Generation. He joins Kevin to discuss how this workforce is not different from previous generations, however because of their experiences, like when they were introduced to technology, they are requiring change. Leaders need to use millennials to become better equipped for the future; to make those changes that will lead to the future success of the organization.
In this episode, Chris shares 1. Importance of stereotyping a generation. 2. The 70/30 rule. 3. Advice to keep millennials engaged at work
I've been writing about leadership, coaching leaders, and leading for a long time. Maybe it makes sense to step back to the fundamentals. What is leadership anyway? I'll answer that and any other questions you have.
And you can sign up for my upcoming free webinar on October 21st titled, Why It Takes More Than Skills to Be a Remarkable Leader to hear even more about this: http://KevinEikenberry.com/way
In a daily email that I send, I asked everyone to send me their favorite ice cream flavors. And I learned A LOT about ice cream – particularly that there are lots of flavors, people LOVE ice cream and they are very particular about what and why they like it. But I also learned a lot about relationships and leadership from this very simple exercise.
From This Episode:
If you lead a department, a team, or a person (or family), you have probably had a coaching moment. Kevin is joined by Melvin Smith, co-author of Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. Often, we coach to fix something or fill a learning gap. When we coach for compliance, however, we trigger a physiological response that leads to defensiveness and our feedback works against us. Melvin believes we need to start with the person and find out what they want to do/be. We want to trigger a positive physiological response, which opens people up to more creative thinking and sustainable change.
In this episode, Melvin discusses 1. Coaching vs. helping. 2. Emotional attractors. 3. Personal vision statements and balance sheets.
Ask yourself: Are you coaching for compliance or with compassion?
Join me as we explore leadership lessons from my John Deere lawn tractor. I'll answer questions too.
You can learn more about The Remarkable Way in my upcoming webinar which you can sign up for at: https://kevineikenberry.com/way
Something I’ve noticed over the years is that the word “fine” has an interesting connotation in our lives. It’s often used as a “conversation stopper” – a way to indicate that it’s good enough. But the question really needs to be:
Is fine always a good thing?
Is fine good enough?
In today’s episode, I am going to give you tips to help you deal with “fine” in your leadership role, your workplace, your relationships and your life.
From This Episode:
If you are looking to recruit the best talent for your organization, you need to address the big issues in your organization. Caroline Stokes is the founder of FORWARD, an executive headhunting and executive coaching company and the author of Elephants Before Unicorns: Emotionally Intelligent HR Strategies to Save Your Company. She realized that just helping companies hire someone to fill a position was not enough. We need to remember the human element and she helps individuals and organizations adapt through emotional intelligence. Caroline suggests hiring should be thought of as a process, not just an event. She shares with Kevin her thoughts on authenticity about your brand and the importance of real and difficult conversations (not just make an impression) to recruit and retain the people who will make your organization successful.
In this episode, Caroline talks about 1. Recruiters. 2. Employer brand. 3. Fake unicorns.
A viewer from Brazil challenged me to connect leadership and a can of Coke - so that is what I am doing. Join me, learn something, be inspired, ask questions, and maybe even add to the Leadership/Coke connections!
We all have habits in our lives. And while many habits are great and have valuable purposes, some habits are…not so great.
But first, before we define what is and what isn’t a bad habit in our lives, we need to start at the beginning and define what really is a bad habit?
From This Episode:
Less than 20% of employees believe their managers understand what they do day-to-day. Given this, how do managers become more impactful with their team? Jaime Roca is Senior Vice President at Gartner, managing the global Research & Advisory team, and is the co-author The Connector Manager: Why Some Leaders Build Exceptional Talent - and Others Don't. He and his colleagues surveyed over 9000 managers and employees to find out what the best managers do to coach and develop talent in today’s environment. Jaime shares with Kevin the types (or approaches) to coaching and what they found to be most and least effective.
I'm talking about the word manager - and all the baggage associated with it - and why that all matters to manager - and leaders.
13 Days to Remarkable Leadership Video Series: http://KevinEikenberry.com/13days
As a “farm kid”, I’ve had a lot of experience with weeds – working hard to eliminate them so that we can grow the crops we needed on our farm. And I’ve spent my fair share of pulling them as an adult both at my house and still at the farm.
And while I can’t quite say that I’ve ever thought of weeds when I think about leadership, but thanks to another challenge from one of you, our viewers, today I am drawing lessons from a garden weed for leaders.
From This Episode:
Disruption, do you need it in your business? According to Charlene Li, what you do need is to acknowledge your customers are changing and you need to be thinking about your future. Charlene is the New York Times bestselling author of six books, including her newest release, The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Businesses Transform While Others Fail as well as co-author of the critically acclaimed book, Groundswell. She sits down with Kevin to talk about real disruption. It’s not about “blowing things up”, but about creating a real change. You need a passion to serve your future customer. And it’s not easy, in fact, the “process” can be incredibly difficult. It’s important to remember the “why” and move people to act and see themselves as leaders.
We'll explore what is called the Galatea Effect, why it is so powerful, and how it can help us all improve.
Several years ago, I went through a phase of using fountain pens. So when one of our viewers challenged me to find leadership lessons from a fountain pen, I was more than happy to oblige.
In this episode, I have five valuable leadership lessons from this every day object.
From This Episode:
Leaders are always transmitting signals, whether they are intentional or not. Teams take cues from their leaders to create a culture and your culture can give you a competitive advantage. Jeff Grimshaw works to align people with their strategy and is the co-author of Five Frequencies: Leadership Signals that Turn Culture into Competitive Advantage. With over 20 years of research, Jeff and his colleagues found leaders create a culture through their words and actions (their signals) on Five Frequencies. Jeff discusses these frequencies and gives examples to turn the culture you have into the culture you need.
This week, I am continuing to answer the challenges that our viewers have given me – asking me to derive leadership lessons from everyday, random objects. And today is especially appropriate given that it’s almost the end of summer:
Check out this episode for four ways that we can connect a swimming pool and leaders!
In this world of constant change, leaders are challenged with uncertainty. Brad Deutser recognized the struggle of leading through ambiguity and founded Deutser, a consulting firm that helps organizations and their leaders achieve clarity, and the Deutser Clarity Institute, a think tank, idea accelerator, and learning lab. Brad is also the author of Leading Clarity: The Breakthrough Strategy to Unleash People, Profit and Performance. Brad joins Kevin to discuss expectations, for both leaders and their people. When leaders have clarity and can share, they are able to provide a space for their employees to achieve great results. However, Brad cautions us to look for masqueraders of clarity. We believe things, like policies, help make things clear and really leave gaps in expectations.