Leadership Articles

Business » Leadership | By Patricia Stevens @ Saturday, 9th August 2008 @ 3:14 PM

Opentaps open source ERP decision is necessary for all business leaders. This system is integrated JAVA application, which can help you conduct all main functions in your enterprise - bookkeeping, e-commerce, storehouse, amount available, selling centre and many others. It is a perfect decision for you and your personnel. Though in the last conducted researches, the growth of popularity of the open ERP-systems is not marked (their experts only start studying the given theme), abundantly ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Thursday, 7th August 2008 @ 2:33 AM

My son plays the clarinet. I don\'t know if you\'ve seen one up close, but it\'s a beautiful instrument: a glossy black wooden tube, encrusted with silver stops and levers. But it takes time to learn how to play. (It takes time to learn how to put it together!) Everything to do with this beautiful instrument takes time. One thing I found particularly amazing, when my son started learning how to play the clarinet, was the instructions he was given on how to practise. ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Lee Salz @ Tuesday, 29th July 2008 @ 3:02 PM

When I speak to business executives, one of the challenges I often hear is that their sales team is not doing the things they feel are most critical to the success of the company. I then ask to see their compensation plan. After a thorough read, I share my impression of the message of the compensation plan and ask if this is their intention. That\'s when things get scary! They look at me blankly and say, \"No, our intention is for our sales people to ___\" For them, the disconnect h... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Saturday, 26th July 2008 @ 1:49 AM

Now I\'m sure you\'ve read Stephen Covey\'s excellent book \'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People\'. But if you haven\'t, you should. It\'s an inspiring summary of the seven simple but motivational things you need to do to be an inspirational leader. And it can help you to build an inspirational leadership style. I mention Covey\'s book because my recent research tackles the other end of the scale. I\'ve been looking at \'The Sev... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 11:33 PM

It\'s daunting for business leaders who aspire to improve their leadership to be told to follow the example of Gandhi or Martin Luther King. These people are certainly inspirational, but they\'re a tough act to follow in the real world. I\'ve therefore been looking at what we can learn from leaders who get it wrong. In researching \'The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders\', I\'ve discovered there are thousands of managers who continue to demotivate th... more...

Business » Leadership | By Lee Salz @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 4:38 PM

The other day my nine-year old daughter and two sons (seven and five years old respectively) were playing with neighborhood friends. Out of the blue, my two sons came running home upset because the girls in the group told them they didn\'t want to play with them. I was puzzled. Wasn\'t my daughter also in the group? How could she allow these girls to tell her younger brothers that they couldn\'t also play in the group? Why didn\'t she defend her brothers? I sat down wi... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 1:16 PM

The question I am most often asked by managers is: \'Why won\'t they do what I want?\' This is usually followed by: \'And why don\'t they work harder?\' As leaders and managers, we often assume that, if our employees really wanted to perform better, their performance would just increase. We assume that people\'s ability to boost their own performance is totally within their own control. This is just not true. Decades of research into motivation an... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 1:10 PM

Most people could perform at a much higher level than they do if their boss created a suitable environment for them to flourish in. In many instances, it\'s the boss who is holding the team back by trying to control it too closely. So ask yourself, do you set unnecessary boundaries for your teams? If you have no idea, maybe you should ask them. \"How am I holding you back?\" you could ask. One useful technique to adopt is a KISS strategy: use it in this discussion and... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 8:24 AM

Put people first. It\'s the great cliche, isn\'t it? When a business school professor like me asks you \'what\'s the most productive leadership style?\', you know the answer don\'t you? Put people first. But if everyone knows the answer, why aren\'t more people doing it? Why aren\'t executives focused on motivating and inspiring their people? The reality is that people put profits first. They focus on the short-term financial gain without rea... more...

Business » Leadership | By Steven Sonsino @ Friday, 25th July 2008 @ 8:02 AM

We learn most from our mistakes. It\'s true. But problems occur for us when we forget this. Or when we deliberately deny that we made a mistake. And - if we\'re honest - most of us do this, from time to time. So in this article I want to share with you the IMPORTANCE of learning from your mistakes. AND how best to learn from your mistakes. These ideas were first captured for me in a little known book by Calhoun Wick and Lu Leon way back in 1993, but their thinking on how ... more...