In June my newest book, The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership, was released!
And to celebrate this occasion, in this episode, I am sharing some of my best ideas from the book for leaders (or future leaders) of remote teams.
Research shows us that creativity is not for a select few. 40% of the population has the same creative potential. So, who becomes the next big tech genius, author, producer…? Allen Gannett, author of The Creative Curve: How To Develop the Right Idea, At the Right Time, shares the truth about creative success. Allen explains the mechanics of what he calls the “the creative curve” – the point of optimal tension between what is familiar and what is new. Creative people don’t just consume content, they are deliberate.
As a bonus, Allen shares some tips if you find yourself on The Wheel of Fortune.
Cash Keahey works with new and emerging leaders and is often asked what personality types make the best leaders? It’s a difficult question at best and he didn’t have the data to provide a solid answer. So, he took his interest in politics and studied successful presidents based on the assessments of 120 presidential historian-experts and accompanying analyses and authored Eight Leader Types in the White House: Discover and Leverage Your Oval Office Leadership Style. Cash used the Myers-Briggs/Jungian personality theory to develop his leadership types. We all demonstrate these styles depending on our view of the world and we evolve. He suggests we find our leadership type and jump to that presidential chapter in the book to learn more about our strengths and blind spots.
I am starting this episode with a very important question for leaders.
Commitment or compliance: WHICH do you want?
And your answer to that question will make all the difference to which you will actually get. Check out the video to learn more.
Statistics show that we spend more time with the people we work with than we do with our family. Todd Palmer, CEO of Extraordinary Advisors and author of The Job Search Process: Find & Land a Great Job in 6 Weeks or Less, discusses servant leadership and taking care of those that take care of you. He tells Kevin that there are fewer people working than 40 years ago, yet not enough people for jobs. Leaders need to be thinking about their talent search and the opportunities their companies offer. Todd also offers a bonus to listeners of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast
In leadership, there are a couple of types of problems or challenges: there are skill problems and there are habit problems.
And in today’s episode, I am sharing some ideas with you that will help you to address the habit problem of how to listen more and listen better.
Early in his career, Carter Cast sat in a tough meeting with his supervisor and learned a hard truth about himself. He says it derailed him for a time and then led to the research to understand what impeded the career progress of talented people. Carter is very candid with Kevin about that meeting and shares his research and about his book, The Right (and Wrong) Stuff: How Brilliant Careers are Made. Carter believes we must understand our own vulnerabilities to work around or manage them, so we don’t sabotage our future.
It’s inevitable that there will be “silos” in organizations – groups that operate individually and separately from the rest of the organization. And unfortunately, this can often lead to the “Them vs. Us” syndrome.
And as leaders, we need to be breaking down barriers between project teams, groups and departments so that we can be more inclusive and therefore more successful.
In today’s episode, I am giving you five pieces of advice to help you and your organization be more inclusive.
You are not alone if you are feeling overwhelmed by the changing workplace. Not only do we have more generations working side by side, we also have colleagues working a time zone away. Wayne Turmel, Kevin’s co-author of The Long-Distance Leader, joins Kevin to dig deeper into the book and share his thoughts about remote leadership. Results from their research suggested that 60% of managers feel like they don’t know what they are doing when it comes to remote working. Yes, the work is getting done and at what cost? Because we can’t rely on real-time, face-to-face communication when people work from home or the other side of the world, leaders need to change how they think, act and communicate
When we do something with intention, it’s something that is on purpose, planned and conscious.
And intentional leaders are simply better leaders.
So today, I’m giving you four things that you can do right away to be more intentional starting today.
Leadership is about behaviors. Martin Lanik a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology and author of The Leader Habit had an a-ha moment years ago after he read a study that said more money was being spent on leadership development, yet there was less confidence in leading. As a scientist, he researched 800 leaders to come up with 22 core leadership skills and the micro-behaviors that leaders possess. In the Leader Habit, Martin shares 5-minute exercises that can turn anyone into an effective leader
While I mention Performance Reviews in the title of this podcast and throughout the audio many times, that is NOT my biggest focus today.
Today, I am talking about coaching and giving four specific pieces of advice to help you focus more on the coaching and less on the performance review.
Former CEO of Dollar General and now author, Cal Turner Jr., joins Kevin to talk about the family business. His father and grandfather founded Dollar General and his new book, My Father's Business: The Small-Town Values That Built Dollar General into a Billion-Dollar Company. chronicles how the small-town values with which he was raised helped him guide Dollar General from family enterprise to national powerhouse. A solid family relationship is vital to the success of a family company, especially during challenging times. However, Cal would also argue that relationships and serving others are the basis for any organization.
Trust is the foundation of some extremely important business issues. From retention to employee engagement to Customer satisfaction and productivity - you likely won't be satisfied with any of these unless there is trust.
And in order to have more trust in the workplace, we have to understand a few things about it. Check out today's episode to learn how you can foster more trust in your own workplace.
Kelly Roach believes you need to start from where you are. She is the host of the top-rated podcast Unstoppable Success Radio, CEO of Kelly Roach Coaching, and author of Unstoppable: 9 Principles For Unlimited Success In Business & Life. These principles are lessons learned from the trenches and from industry leaders and came about to help find the balance between financial success with freedom and flexibility.
Too many leaders get caught up in the power. I’m certain that you’ve met at least one or two, maybe even worked for one…
“It’s my way or the highway.”
Sound familiar?
And while it’s not always that strong, there are many subtle ways that we as leaders focus on the power of leadership.
Check out today’s episode for some easy-to-implement advice for focusing on the influence rather than the power.
Research has shown that the same receptors fire in our brain when people are introduced to changes in social systems (like organizational change) as when we are in pain. It’s no wonder that 65% of business fail at organizational change. Barbara Trautein, Ph.D. joins Kevin to discuss change intelligence. She recognized we have tools to manage change and tools to develop leaders. She also realized that we were missing the tools to develop change leadership. She is the author of the best-selling book Change Intelligence: Use the Power of CQ to Lead Change that Sticks and originator of the CQ System for Developing Change Intelligent Leaders and Organizations.
At the end of last year I wrote a blog post titled, Eight Ways to Be a Better Leader in 2018.
And in today’s video, I am focusing on just one of those ways, specifically: More Productivity Less Place.
From The Episode:
Mark Miller is the Vice President of High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A Inc. or “The Chicken”, as he affectionately refers to it. He is also a best selling author, by accident according to Mark, and joins Kevin to discuss top talent. He recently released Talent Magnet: How To Attract And Keep The Best People. In discussions with organizational leaders, Mark found that finding and keeping good people had become the number one issue. Through not only qualitative data, but based on extensive research Mark conducted with Aon, he discovered that what keeps and attracts top talent is different than what attracts and keeps typical talent.
In this episode, Mark disusses 1. The difference between talent and top talent. 2. Three things top talent want. 3 Social media in leadership.
Don’t worry – today’s episode has nothing to do with running and really nothing to do with sports!
What I’m talking about today is helping leaders break barriers – their own and those of their team.
From This Episode:
Not all mistakes are created equal. Skip Prichard is the President & CEO of OCLC, a global nonprofit computer library service and research organization. He is also the author of The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. Through observation and research, Skip shares stories of mistakes we make that limit our potential. You have the choice to decide how you reach and where you want to go.
In this episode, Skip focuses on 1. Standing out vs. blending in. 2. Surrounding yourself with the right (or wrong) people.
If you have kids or if you were ever a kid (and I'm guessing you can answer at least one of these affirmatively??), you have asked or been asked this question before:
What did you learn today?
And while this is a very valid question, as you'll notice in the title of this blog post, it's not the question I am talking about in the video.
Instead of a REVIEW question, I am talking about a PREVIEW question.
From This Episode:
Gary Brackett went from an undrafted free agent to football captain and Superbowl champion. Post football, he is a community leader and entrepreneur. How did someone 5’10” and 230 pounds get to these positions? He played from the neck up and joins Kevin to talk about consistency and repetition. Lessons he learned on the playing field transfer to his role as the owner of Brackett Restaurant Group and founder of The Impact Foundation. He shares the importance of continuing to read, learn, train and invest in yourself to make your next “quarter” better.
The commercials during the Super Bowl have become just as popular as the actual sporting event itself, and this year, there was one that was even more popular and memorable for The Kevin Eikenberry Group.
And...it provided some valuable leadership lessons for me, my team and really all leaders.
From This Episode:
Leading and learning are hooked together; not surprising or new information. Kay Peterson, founder of the Institute for Experiential Learning and co-author of How You Learn is How You Live joins Kevin to discuss how we can increase our capability to learn from the experiences throughout our lives. Kay talks about learning styles and how they can be applied to not only be a more effective learner, but also a more effective leader.
In this episode, Kay:
1. Defines experiential learning.
2. Discusses the learning cycle and learning styles.
3. Shares her thoughts on learning flexibility.