Joeri Carty

Leadership Coach

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Joeri Carty

Magnificent Coaching

Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410

Phone: (561)-768-7658

Email: joeri@joericarty.com

JOERI CARTY is a proven leader in the Fortune 200 company space. He has worked in various roles, and is a subject matter expert in process improvement and executive coaching.  Throughout his career he has saved multi-millions in cost, and has implemented various innovation programs with great success.

Joeri works with senior leaders up to C-Level with planning and executing critical strategies to improve their areas, and improve their competitive advantages.  Joeri has a proven track record and is a leader in his space.  Joeri is also an ICF certified leadership coach. Visit Joeri online at www.joericarty.com His passion is to help executives and leaders understand how to stay ahead of their competition and accelerate their success.

Driving Accelerated Results in an Increasingly Competitive Environment

According to a recent study¹⁾ of global CEOs by The Conference Board there are 3 themes that constantly rise to the top of their concerns in order: Recession Risk, More intense competition, Tight labor market.

Every day CEOs are faced with increasing pressures of how to stay ahead, stay cost competitive and continue to innovate new products and solutions.  You may ask yourself: How do I stay ahead of the pack? How do I continue to innovate? How do I reduce my costs exponentially?

While these questions may seem overwhelming to you as a CEO, there are key strategies you can implement to create certainty, and a workable plan around all of these areas.

In my experience helping businesses scale and innovate, there are four key ingredients to help you get there the fastest.  This insight comes from helping hundreds of leaders understand and improve their cost profiles, innovate new products, and implementing these strategies.

What do I mean by key ingredients? I am glad you asked, there are 4 subcomponents that define this: Purpose, Vision, Results, Accelerators.

Purpose

Being clear on purpose as a CEO is key.  I have found in my work with leaders that often times this is missing or not clear.  In order to be crystal clear on purpose you have to get three pieces right, Why – Who – How.  I refer to this as the WWH principle.  As a leader you must articulate for you as well as your business the “Why” behind your desire to succeed in this space.  Why is important for obvious reasons, without a clarity in this space it is hard to communicate to your teams.  Teams need clarity and a purpose to continue to challenge themselves to get better.  Why helps when times are difficult to keep your teams motivated.  There are plenty of great resources available to help you hone-in on a clear Why.

The “Who” in your purpose is also important.  Who are you ultimately driving for? Are you trying to change the world with your product? Great! Who is your target customer?  Create a narrative around this, and use this narrative when you are addressing your teams and larger employee groups.

This is most effective when you can create a persona and a picture of who you are ultimately wanting to impact in a positive way.  Excellent examples include a person who needs your product to improve their life in some way, or a person who exemplifies your target customer.  For extra credit, having videos of these customers explaining why your product is important really makes a difference.

Lastly, “How” is often overlooked when thinking about purpose.  You need to define as a leader how you plan on achieving your goals.  The most successful teams I have worked with identify 1-3 core values which all address the “How” you expect the organization to achieve success.  If the how is not clear, people will cut corners and undermine what you are trying to accomplish.You can have the best intentions, the best target client, but how you achieved your goal completely erases all the goodness you have tried to get.

Strong how values include areas where you do not waiver when things get tough.  It becomes the way you hold everyone accountable, including yourself.  It is the higher standard that everyone is expected to abide by.

In summary, if you have clear purpose you are ahead of the pack because your teams have clarity in Why we are here, Who we impact, and How we are expected to achieve our goals.

Vision

Clear vision is a must for accelerated success.  You have to be able to 1) define the end goal 2) determine the path and 3) communicate the speed.  The best visions have all three elements identified clearly.  Effective CEOs use this in all of their communications with both their teams, customers, and stakeholders.

Define the end Goal

Said simply: where are you trying to go?  Your vision should clearly define that the end of the journey looks like.  Notice I used “journey”, it is a process that continues to challenge us to get better.  It helps people understand your vision and by when they need to get there.  If you get in your car and you just start driving, when will you know you have reached your destination?  Maybe you wanted to get to San Francisco, but you arrived in New York? You need to have clarity on what the end goal is for your organization.

Determine the Path

The path of how to get to your goal is extremely important.  Clarity on the path will help your team identify clear milestones and drive actions to achieve the goals they need to complete.  If people are unsure about the path, they may waste valuable time spinning their wheels or moving in the opposite direction of progress towards your end goal.

Communicate the Speed

In my experience when speed is missing, groups run the risk of becoming obsolete.  The CEO sets the goal, the path, but when they don’t define speed they are in real trouble.  Another way to communicate Speed is to identify the sense of urgency.  This is the achieve this goal, following this path, by when?  You need to be able to communicate if this is a 3-month goal, or a 5 year goal.  In the highly competitive times we live in right now, you have to move quickly to stay ahead of your competition.

Results

Driving results in any organization is a must in order to achieve your goals.  Driving effective results as a CEO or senior leader has to have 3 important components: Accountability, Change Management, Measurable progress.  You need all three to see significant progress.
 

Accountability

You have to build simple and repeatable accountability structures to measure results and progress.  I have seen many great strategies and ideas fail because they became less important over time, and no one asked for updates…  The simple way to drive this accountability is make it visible, and hold short but impactful meetings to discuss progress with you lead teams.

Change Management

Build the right level of communication and change in your organization to bring the rest of the team along the journey.  You can build great momentum and people will get onboard and accelerate your results.

Measurable Progress

Whatever you end up taking on, make sure you can measure progress.  If it can’t be measured, it will not be done.  Find creative ways to challenge, but also measure your progress and have people report out every time period.

Accelerators

Accelerators are internal and/or external forces that drive you to drastically move the needle.  Internal examples are: create an execution team, create an innovation space, teach new acceleration tools.  Some external examples are: executive coaches, leadership coaches, external consultants.

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Kristen Franey

Leadership Coach

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Kristen Franey

Kristen Franey is a Transformational Mindset Coach and founder of Your Compass Within, supporting successful leaders to reconnect with their purpose so that they can set and achieve BOLD goals with confidence, fully aligned to their self and soul.  She is a corporate escapee, coffee fanatic, and health enthusiast, and her mission is to enable at-risk girls to stay in school.  Follow YCW on FB and visit her website here to get all the latest updates, news and inspiration.

New Year! New Decade! New Goals!

Problem is, just setting goals is not setting you up for success.

What has been proven to be more successful, is setting intentions, and from these, the goals will follow and be clear.Let’s break it down.

So, what is a goal? 

: The object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result. Similar words are aim, objective, my favorite: Holy Grail, and end target.  

Goals, therefore, are fixed. An end target, you have an end goal. They are the final destination of your efforts.  

When setting them we ensure they are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound.  

They can be very limiting by the very nature of the ways to set them successfully. If you are setting your own goal, are you likely to be as ambitious as possible, or are you likely to say that within a certain amount of time you are likely to be able to achieve what you can celebrate? Inherently, this keeps you from pushing yourself to achieve all your limitless potential.

Consider on the other hand, and intention:

: A thing intended, an aim or a plan.

Similar words are purpose, intent, design, goal, desire, aspiration. And in medicine, intention refers to a healing process. 

• Intentions are limitless
• Intention is the WHY – and the Goal is the HOW.

Intentions are the foundations of goals – the big picture that you need to be clear on before you can find true success with the goals. 

If you are finding that you are often not achieving your goals, or not even setting them, ask yourself this:

• Have you sent intentions?
• Are you crystal clear on those intentions?
• Are you consistent with your intentions?

Intentions are the beginning – the seed – of manifesting and attracting what you want.  

1. Because you are aligning your desires, thoughts, energy, and vibration with the universe
2. Practically – you are using your intention as a lens to guide you

→ Every action begins with an intention: before rolling out of bed in the morning, you have an intention to do so

→ Every thought, therefore, begins with an intention. Because thinking is also an action.

As Deepak Chopra says: “An intention is a directed impulse of consciousness that contains the seed form of that which you aim to create. Like real seeds, intentions can’t grow if you hold on to them. Only when you release your intentions into the fertile depths of your consciousness can they grow and flourish.”

Bringing that inkling of awareness from the subconscious to the conscious creates your intent. 

Intention then becomes the lens through which you approach your actions.

Intention is how I choose to be, what I choose to focus on, and WHY I choose to bring this into the world.

Consider this, 

“This conscious change is brought about by the two qualities inherent in consciousness: attention and intention. Attention energizes, and intention transforms. Whatever you put your attention on will grow stronger in your life. Whatever you take your attention away from will wither, disintegrate, and disappear. Intention, on the other hand, triggers the transformation of energy and information. Intention organizes its own fulfillment.” Deepak Chopra

Intentions focus on the present moment – and the abundance of opportunity, rather than GOALS which focus on the future, which is unknown. This is then likely to keep you focused on what you don’t have so that you approach situations from a perspective of lack rather than abundance.

So, how do you use this in the real world?

For 2020, my intention is to AMPLIFY – 

1. I am putting this into the world so that there is an energy around it
2. I am creating energy that aligns with amplification
3. Every decision that I am faced with goes through the lens of amplification
4. When I review my days and weeks and set up the new ones I come back to my intention: Did I amplify all that I had the opportunity to amplify?

Goals are important – SMART and BOLD – [Brave, Obligatory, Life-like, Determined]

BOLD goals are driven out of clear intentions, clear purpose.

And how do you get there?

Simple: sitting in meditation brings the thoughts clearly from thought → intention → reality

• Create quiet
• Allow stillness
• Release your intentions – set them, and set them into the Universe
• Detach yourself from the outcome – trust the Universe
• This doesn’t mean you get to bounce around aimlessly. You have agency and control over your actions.  
• What it DOES mean is that when you are clear on your purpose you get clear on your intentions and desires and you get clear on your BOLD goals – and the steps to achieving your goals unfold with clarity.

So, how often should I be setting my intentions, so that I am not bouncing around all over the place, I hear you say.

• Start big: KNOW YOUR PURPOSE – THIS IS THE GREATEST INTENTION
• For the year – choose and align with a word of the year if you like – AMPLIFY, GROWTH…
• For the month, and week – this is how you will direct your energy
• And, daily – with your meditation practice. It is so important to create a ritual so that you can FEEL your intention and the result of achieving it and living in it. 
• Set your intention into the world. 
• Be open to all the possibility

Intentions are important because they:

• Connect you to source and the universe
• Ground you to your purpose with clarity
• Set the stage for manifesting
• Enable you to approach from a perspective of abundance rather than lack – present-minded
• Enable your goals to come to fruition – often in unexpected ways.

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Kristine Shipman

Leadership Coach

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Kristine Shipman

Kristine has dedicated the last 16 years to developing her expertise in the areaof systems improvement, aligned strategic planning, and leadership capacity building. She spent her early professional years in the education context in the role of teacher, data analyst, education administrator and small business owner. Since 2016, Kristine has served as an Executive Leadership Coach providing coaching for Cabinet level leaders and C-suite executives. She has earned certificates in Improvement Science from the University of Michigan, Race and Equity Leadership from Harvard University, and has been trained in the Compassionate Systems Framework in partnership with MIT.
Kristine received her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with an emphasis in Economics and Peace and Conflict Studies, her Master’s degree in Education Administration with a focus on strategic planning for systemic improvement, and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership from the University of Southern California with her research focused on increasing gender and ethnic parity in senior level leadership positions.
In her full time coaching role, she has supported the development and growth of more than 100 leaders from a wide range of backgrounds. She engages in thought partnership, reflective coaching, strategic planning, needs sensing, capacity building, and asset mapping.  In addition to systems improvement coaching, through her trademarked coaching and empowerment frameworks, Kristine focuses clients on embracing talent and cultivating expertise through authenticity, resilience and strength.
As a lifelong learner she is passionate about systems thinking and bringing coherence across complex initiatives. Kristine works with leaders on recognizing constraints, debilitating beliefs, and limitations to accelerate personal and professional growth. She looks forward to the opportunity to partner with you to achieve your personal leadership aspirations.Please reach out to her at kristine_shipman@outlook.com for your free leadership consultation.

Neither the Bull or the Belle

Empowering change through gender parity

Bulldog, aggressive, demanding, overbearing, too emotional, too excited, too sensitive, too manly, too caring, too…these are all phrases that female leaders encounter on their pathway to leadership. Each phrase chipping away at her way of existing in an increasingly complex leadership environment. 

In the wake of Me Too, significant time and attention has been focused on the role of women in school, at home, and at work as conversations center around stereotypical gender roles and the treatment of women. The conversations around Me Too have continued to evolve and have moved from focusing on victims to focusing on the broader concepts of empowerment and equality leading. This fundamental shift has triggered a broader conversation about the continued under representation of women in the C-suite.

In their 2018 report on the share of female CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, Forbes highlighted that 24 of the top 500 companies employed female CEOs. The access and opportunity gap is apparent here considering women comprise a greater total percentage of the general US population than men, yet they hold significantly fewer c-suite positions than their male colleagues.

While women in CEO positions are on the rise, at the current rate of change it would take more than 30 years to attain gender parity in the C-suite. Women find themselves having a seat at the table in many more c-suite conference rooms, yet the lived experiences of female top level executives differ dramatically from their male colleagues. The challenges of ascending to the c-suite are much more complex for women as they must overcome the unconscious biases of their colleagues and boards who are influenced by perceptions of their limitations based merely on their gender assignment.

Turning the tide on this paradigm will land primarily on the shoulders of the women in c-suite leadership roles, they serve as the token woman in the room who bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She is symbolic and, in many instances, serves to reinforce negative or positive perceptions of what women are capable of doing. The female leader who walks into the board room and takes her well-earned place at the conference room table in the c-suite carries with her the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of thousands of other women who are looking to her to be a guidepost of how to succeed. In light of this, how do we embrace and not alienate women in the c-suite?

Inclusion and belonging are the solution. Living out inclusion and belonging every day when it is differs from what has been the norm takes intentionality. It takes a willingness to lock arms with the female leaders in your midst to build a trusting relationship centered on mutual respect. While many corporations launch into diversity, equity and inclusion work with expansive policies and extensive trainings, I strongly believe the solution begins with something fundamentally simplistic. The catalyst for increasing gender equity in the C-suite begins by focusing on the need to REACH. 

Recommend her:

Sponsorship is a  key component that supports the promotion of female leaders. What does this look like in action? It begins with recommending her to lead highly visible or organization-wide projects. When other names are being thrown into the ring, bring up the names of female leaders to ensure that they 

receive equal consideration and opportunity. Being selected to lead a highly visible project of prominence within an organization provides female leaders the opportunity to have a seat at the table and to use her own talents, skills and expertise necessary build awareness of her value and qualifications. 

Embrace her:

Be open to the ideas that she brings and the perspective that she offers on complex organizational dilemmas. While the solution that she offers may be outside of what has been the traditional way of doing things, her unique perspective and approach could support shifting practice in a positive trajectory. She will look through a different lens, however different is not meant to threaten the contributions of others. The intent is to support growth and health of the organization.

Amplify her:

Invest in those areas that research proves make a difference in growing female leaders through establishing formal mentoring structures. Build a coalition of support for equality to make gender parity in leadership the moral imperative of the organization. A key to opening leadership doorways to the c-suite relies on formal mentoring and coaching relationships. Corporations with established mentoring mechanisms or budgets to encourage securing executive coaching services support female leaders in amplifying their impact. These services are seen beneficial to the health and growth of the organization and as vital to building a leadership pipeline for sustainable and stable long term growth.

Consider her:

Take a moment to pause and ask yourself where most decisions are made for your organization and then look around the room to see who is around you when those decisions are made. You may find that important decisions are being made on the golf course, at the club, during happy hour, in the company suite for a sporting event, during the running club. If you find that this phenomenon is occurring, then consider how you can be intentional about providing the female leader in your midst with the same opportunities to be fully included as an equally respected colleague in the conversation. It may result in adjusting how work has always been done, but the results will have positive impacts in your organization.

Hear her:

As the female leader in your midst surfaces concerns, shares her own perspectives, or processes a challenging encounter with a client. Take a moment to listen with the intent to understand not to fix. Do the hard work of lifting up from your own perspective to try and take hers. Truly hearing a leader among you who is already in the minority in terms of representation provides a sense of validation and belonging. In that moment asking a reflective question and being a thought partner will build a strong professional connection furthering a trust bond.

The female leaders among us donot want to feel like a bull in the china shop, to feel as if they are repeatedly crashing up against invisible glass ceilings and walls…it is never comfortable to be THAT woman, the one who feels as if she is forcing herself into an environment where she is not welcome or wanted. On the other hand, the female leaders among us also do not want to be seen as the belle of the ball who is on displayas a trophy on the arm of prince charming of the C-suite.

The female leaders among us simply desire to be seen, heard, valued, and embraced for the value she brings to the organization. The first step is simple and intentional, it rests in being willing to REACH.

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Madeleine Homan Blanchard

Leadership Coach

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Madeleine Homan Blanchard

Madeleine is on the Board of Directors of The Ken Blanchard Companies and is a co-founder of Blanchard Coaching Services. She is a co-creator of the Coaching Management System, Blanchard’s proprietary software designed to help deliver coaching on a large scale in organizations.

Madeleine has 30 years of experience in the coaching profession and has deep understanding of working with organizations to leverage professional coaching, teach coaching skills to leaders and create a coaching culture.  She is the author of several coaching skills programs. As a coach she specializes in coaching creative geniuses.

Her books are Leverage Your; Ditch the Rest, and Coaching in Organizations, and she writes a weekly advice column Ask Madeleine.

9 CEO Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Being a leader is the perfect way to ensure that you face your own imperfections on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Being the top leader is utterly thankless. If things go well, people assume you are lucky.

If things are go poorly, it’s all your fault.So how do CEOs deal with the discomfort of knowing they are constantly being judged and found wanting? Most find ways to be right even when they’re not. And many surround themselves with people who shore up their insecurities—which is the worst possible thing they can do.

It can be really addictive to be the smartest person in the room and the one with the most power.But when you’re someone others have to follow,it’s easy to forget about trying to be someone others choose to follow.This, of course, lays the groundwork for the kind of hubris that can bring down the best.

There are some measures a CEO or senior executive can take to avoid these pitfalls. 

Get to know your board

Every single person.Learn how they think and what is important to them.  Listen carefully to what they tell you. If they bother to tell you anything at all, be sure you pay attention.

I worked with one CEO whose board told him repeatedly that they needed him to take a specific action. It wasn’t convenient for him to comply, and he figured if he was really good at the job they would get over themselves. He was wrong. He didn’t last.

It is easy to underestimate how powerful people on the board can be, especially if they are quiet. The more you know every single person and give them a chance to know you, the better off you will be. 

Surround yourself with smart people

This sounds so obvious—yet it happens so rarely. Commit to surrounding yourself with people who are at least as smart as you are, if not smarter.It is humbling, not to mention terrifying, to hire people who could potentially outshine you

—yet most businesses need the intellectual horsepower on the executive to compete in today’s market place.

Skip the yes men

Make sure you have different perspectives and thinking styles on your team. Beware of anyone who automatically defers to you. If there isn’t some friendly conflict and debate, you need to ask yourself if you have the right team. If everyone on your executive team agrees all the time, you should be very suspicious.

Be a role model for self-awareness and development

Keep the conversation going about what everyone is learning and where they want to grow themselves. Share your own challenges. Make the conversation about learning and development normal, so that everyone on the team sees themselves and everyone else as fallible human beings instead of untouchable masters of the universe. This also creates an environment where every team member’s strengths can be recognized and leveraged. 

Get close—but not too close

Spend quality time with your team, get to know them, and certainly be as authentic with them as possible. But know where the boundaries are. Set them and keep them.I once worked with a CEO who would get enamored with new hires and become very close friends with them.

He would socialize and text at all hours. As each new hire lowered their guard and began to think of their new CEO as a friend, he would begin to lose respect for the person and start finding fault with them.

He had no stomach for direct conflict so he would find ways to distance himself from the employee and eventually make it almost impossible for them to perform well so that the person could reasonably be fired. His team was in constant turmoil and drama.It was entertaining to the troops, but who wants to be the entertainment? 

Watch out for your patterns

The CEO from the previous example had a holdover pattern. When he was a more junior leader, it was behavior he could kind of get away with, but when he became top dog it was a pattern that cost him dearly. It took me awhile to see it as his coach, but finally it became clear. When I pointed out the pattern to the CEO, he had no interest in hearing it.

Ensure personal sustainability

It is exhausting to control yourself and behave all day. It is easy to forget how much power you have. But the effect of one tiny lapse of self-control a heavy sigh, an eye roll, one little snarky remark can be regrettable. I’m not the coach who is going to tell you that you have to get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, meditate, and eat right to be a great CEO. But you do have to find one thing you can do to ensure you can self-regulate all day, every day.

Focus on the things only you can do

There just will never be enough time to do everything that needs to be done, so you are going to have to get really picky. Just because you like to do something or are really good at it doesn’t mean you should be doing it.If there is any way someone else could be doing a task, somebody else should be doing it. Could you do it better? Maybe, but that only matters if better is critical to the task.That will leave you with a fairly short list of what you need to be attending to.It will still be 24/7 engagement, but at least you won’t drop balls or lose your mind.

Have a safe harbor

It really is lonely at the top. The reason being a senior leader is so desperately difficult is that there isn’t anyone to look up to who can tell you what to do.Every decision will affect innumerable amounts of people. It is a massive responsibility.Find someone you trust and can talk to on a regular basis whose only agenda is your success. A spouse, a mentor, a coach, a chief of staff, an imaginary Yoda.Someone who will ask you the hard questions such as: Is this going to help achieve the goal?

Is this aligned with the stated values? Are you taking the high road here? Have you consulted the right people and really listened? What do you not want to see that you really should be looking at?

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Michelle Braden

Leadership Coach

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Michelle Braden

Michelle has coached and trained leaders and teams for over 20 years. She is the founder of the Authentic Leadership Summit, the Emerging Executive Leadership Program and has served as a panelist for the World Coaching Conference.  Michelle is a certified coach with ACC credentials from the International Coaching Federation, a MA in Leadership/Management and the author of three leadership books: Stand Out, Dare to Make a Difference, and Bottom Line.  She is also a long-term thought-leadership contributor to several blogs/publications including: Forbes Coaches Council, Thought Leaders, Lead Change and Leadership Courseware.

Top 5 CEO Leadership Traits

Google “What does it take to be a successful CEO?” and you will find yourself with no lack of information, research, ideas and assumptions to answer this question.  The challenge is you will also find that many of those answers contradict themselves.  Some answers to this question are reflective of common stereotypes, such as: “charisma, extroverted personality, visionary, quick problem solver, Ivy League education, male, confident, etc.”. 

The real question we should be asking, however, is: “Are the stereotypical traits of a CEO the true traits and characteristics that make for a successful CEO in 2020?”  Recent research suggests there is not a “one-size-fits-all/cookie-cutter” mold for the perfect CEO. 

The stereotypes that once defined the “ideal” candidate for many a Fortune 500 CEO positions do not hold true today (HBR, What Sets Successful CEOS Apart, May-June 2017 issue). 

The good news is this: as we learn more about what it takes to be a successful CEO through empirical research, we shatter the stereotypes of what has, historically, defined an “ideal CEO,” and allow for a more diverse group of leaders to emerge.

Harvard Business Review embarked on a 10-year study (The CEO Genome Project) to identify the behaviors and traits of executives who either met or exceeded the expectations of their role.   

According to research conducted by the Conference 

And what about charisma?Surely a successful CEO must have charisma!?  A new study suggests that too much charisma can actually be a bad thing for a business leader(“How much charisma does a leader need?” – Cosmos – The Science of Everything – May, 2017, Amy Middleton).  Middleton found that medium levels of charisma are ideal for effective business leadership. Although charismatic leaders may be strong on vision and strategy, they often struggle with the operational side of things.

So, if stereotypical leadership traits like charisma and education don’t predict success, what does it to be a successful CEO?  The following five traits and behaviors, according to research, are key:

1. The ability to make sound and swift decisions

According to the Psychology Today blog post, “What is Intuition and How to Use It”, Intuition is a person’s innate response/behavior.  It is their “gut feeling”—ora hunch—that arises almost immediately in either mind or body (or both). The more a leader pays attention to this sensation, the more self-aware and, ultimately, self-managed they will be.  According to Cholle, a familiarity and comfort with acting intuitively will help to bridge“the gap between the conscious and nonconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.” 

Ultimately, leaders need to practice leveraging both reason and instinct to make fast and effective decisions. Some leaders are afraid to “go with their gut,” however, leaders do not need to let go of logic and reason to benefit from intuition. Successful leaders learn to embrace both.High-performing CEOs acknowledge that forging ahead without all the information means that mistakes will be made, but they have the ability to course-correct when necessary.

Remember, even amidst ambiguity, unfamiliar places and incomplete information, high performing CEOs are still able to make decisions. According to The CEO Genome Project, “decisive” CEOs were 12 times more likely to be “high performing.” Only 1/3^rd of CEOs studied lost their jobs because they made poor decisions; the remaining 2/3^rdlost positions due to being indecisive. 

2. Build and then leverage a strong team

No matter what your business, if you are a leader, you are in the people business.  Successful CEOs know how to and the importance of building a power-house team. Believe it or not, team building is not about investing energy into being liked. This statement may seem like a contradiction to the idea of being in the “people business,” but successful CEOs simply know being liked is not their top priority.

Additionally, successful CEOs know how to leverage people’s strengths and put the right players in the right places, because being a strong CEO is not just about having the strongest work ethic within the organization. According to The CEO Gnome Project, 100% of low-performing CEOs scored high on work ethic, but a successful leader cannot individually work themselves into that success… it takes a tribe!Research recognizes that getting the right people into the right places quickly and efficiently seems to be key to effective team building, (HBR, What Sets A Successful CEO Apart), so choose the right talent, put them in the right places, then let them do their jobs. Steve Jobs may have said it best: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

Below are 9 additional tips for a CEO to take into consideration when empowering their team:

1. Take the time to understand how others tick
2. Listen
3. Inspire
4. Leverage other’s strengths
5. Get buy-in
6. Create loyalty
7. Embrace conflict
8. It is not always a democracy
9. Hold people accountable

Practice and embrace consistency.

• Reliability and consistency are vital elements to build trust, and, according to Patrick Lencioni, the author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, trust is the foundation of a high-performance team. The CEO Genome Projectnoted that 94% of high performing CEOs scored high on consistency and follow-through on their commitments. 
• Consistency is demonstrated not only through meeting tangible commitments, but also through being emotionally self-aware and self-managed. This means knowing your strengths, challenges, what drains you, and what energizes you. 
  
  Self-awarenessis a conscious knowledge of your own character, feelings, motives, desires, your strengths and your weaknesses. A leader can grow their self-awareness both formally and informally.  Different approaches such as a 360 Feedback tool, human behavior assessments, and coaching are meaningful, formal options to become more self-aware.

  Seeking out feedback, individual self-reflection and journaling are more informal ways to grow your self-awareness. Self-management, on the other hand, is putting into practice the management of physical and emotional self and your work based upon what you have learned through self-awareness. 

• Embrace a growth and learning mindset
• One thing is certain: the more we learn, the more we realize what we do not know.  It is great to have the natural ability or skill, and it is another thing to match that ability with learning.
• About 30 years ago, Dr. Carol Dweck (Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University) and some of her colleagues began to study students’ attitudes regarding failure. From their research, they learned some students were able to rebound after failure, yet other students became “devastated by even the smallest setbacks” (https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/). After much research from thousands of children, Dr. Dweck authored the terms “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset” to describe “the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence” (https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/).
• Dweck learned that when a student believed they could learn, grow and “get smarter” they would take more effort to do so and put in the additional time to make it happen. This led to higher levels of achievement in these students. The same is true for successful CEOs.  Those who embrace a growth mindset (even in the midst of what may initially be called “failure”) will also move to higher levels of achievement, just as the students did. CEOs who embrace learning and a growth mindset can “sense the need for change earlier and make strategic moves to take advantage of it (HBR, What Sets Successful CEOs Apart,2017).
• Be intentional to build strong organizational and planning skills
• Unfortunately, organizational and planning skills are not the most exciting topics; however, these skills are quite valuable for the CEO to achieve success. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools, resources and technology to aid all leaders especially those who do not have a natural talent for structure. 
• When a CEO practices organization, they understand and stay focused on what is most important – rather than spreading themselves too thin. Organization allows the CEO’s mind to be free to focus on the bigger picture.

Hopefully these 5 leadership traits discussed in this article will help you be a successful leader.The last thought I want to share with you is that I don’t think there is a leader out there who is 100% at all of these traits 100% of the time… but hopefully they are being consistent in working to further develop these skills. 

Remember, becoming a high performing CEO is a journey not a destination.  I would love to hear your feedback and throughs on this article and what you think it takes to be a successful CEO.

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Patrick Jinks

Leadership Coach

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Patrick Jinks

Patrick Jinks is a certified leadership and strategy coach, and President of The Jinks Perspective. He is the best-selling author of Strategic Fail: Why Non profit Strategic Planning Fails, and How to Fix It, and two additional best sellers with Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul author).

A member of the Forbes Coaches Council and regular contributor to Forbes.com, Patrickis an adjunct executive coach with Leadership Systems, Inc. and a teaching member of The Right Question Institute. He is a Certified Influencer Trainer through Vital Smarts — the people who brought us Crucial Conversations.

Patrick has been featured as a Game Changer® and a Master of Success® in the USA Today and Wall Street Journal, and has been featured on CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX across the country for his unique impact on the world of leadership and strategy. His speaking stages range from TEDx to The United Nations.

4 things leaders need to advance their teams

When I launched The Jinks Perspective as a coaching company, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to help leaders and their teams achieve 3 things to help advance their personal and organizational missions: Clarity, simplicity, and alignment. As I have coached thousands of leaders over the past two decades, I have realized that there is critical 4^th element as well: Inspiration.

CLARITY

Leaders are competing for the very attention of the teams. Our digital worlds and ongoing media bombardments cloud workers’ view more each day.  Additionally, leaders who struggle to communicate effectively are challenged by team members who underperform simply because they are not crystal clear on what the expectations are. 

Leaders who can create the greatest clarity for those they lead have an advantage, because individuals and teams are more likely to engage around work they understand.  They will rally around leaders who say what the mean and do what they say.

Clarity in our own heads as leaders does not equate to clarity in our team members’ minds. We must be skilled at translating our vision to others as clearly as we see it ourselves.

SIMPLICITY

We lead in very complex work worlds.  For example, many of the clients I coach are leaders in the social sector.  There are layers upon layers of complexity woven through the efforts to solve the social ills of the world, like homelessness, poverty, education, and health. 

Corporate leaders face increasingly complicated dynamics of global economics and the challenges of leading intergenerational teams. Even the most knowledgeable and immersed leaders eventually reach a point of overwhelm and paralysis if they don’t somehow find a way to simplify their objectives. 

Simple is not synonymous with easy, but it makes things easier.  Great leaders know how to break projects down to their essence so that teams and stakeholders can truly 

champion the initiatives and not feel overwhelmed by their density.

ALIGNMENT

Many leaders are great at planning.  They may also be great at recruiting, generating ideas, and administrative functions like budgeting. But the most effective leaders know to align all those parts for success.

For example, I have coached many executives who develop stellar strategic plans but fail to remember the plan when it comes time to build the next year’s operational budget or hire the next key team member.  Alignment means that composition, competencies, finances, facilities, brand messaging and more must be in sync with the mission and objectives.

INSPIRATION

Perhaps above all, leaders must inspire. Frameworks and buzzwords will only get your organization so far. Employees are motivated more by meaning than by money. Yes, there is research behind that! You may have heard “process comes before product.”  At The Jinks Perspective, we insist that PEOPLE come before either! 

Inspire your people, and they will perform for you, and for the organization. Leave them empty, and all the great frameworks, processes, and intentions will die on the vine, along with your organization. That’s “The Jinks Perspective!”

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Paul Bellows

Leadership Coach

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Paul Bellows

For 15 years, Paul C Bellows has worked with thousands of bold,driven, and compassionate business leaders to help them achieve their mission and do more good in their communities and around the planet.

He is the founder and CEO of a thriving advisory firm known as “Be Good at Doing Good” where his passion is coaching entrepreneurs and CEOs to help them grow their organization, create sustainable business models, and give back in big ways. He specializes in strategic planning, organizational restructuring, leadership development, culture building, green strategies and exit planning. He also facilitatesmastermind groups, planning retreats, andpresents powerful, practical, and inspirational motivational speeches to all types of companies, non-profits, and associations around the globe.

Paul owned his first business – a BBQ restaurant – in the 1980’s while he was attending the University of Arizona. In the 1990’s, Paul spent 5 years as VP of Asian Operations for GlobeTech International where he grew revenue by more than 1,000%. In 1999 Paul purchased his own high-tech manufacturing company, which he built into a global leader and sold in 2005.

Paul‘s book and proprietarycoaching process- “Be Good at Doing Good!: A Coaching and Planning Guide for the Small Business Owner” – will be released in the spring of 2020. Paul has a Master’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of San Francisco and loves to spend time sailing and traveling with his family.

Business Leadership Master Roles

Knowing how to lead in a given situation and time frame is the defining factor for adaptable and capable modern business leaders. In my work over the last fifteen years helping thousands of passionate, hard-working CEOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders develop and implement their SLAP! (Strategic Living Action Plan), I’ve concluded that superlative business leadership consists of the following four essential Business Leadership Master Roles:

Passionate Visionaries

Passionate Visionaries set and clearly communicate the purpose and vision of the organization. They see the big picture of where the organization is going and its place in their specific industry and community.

Passionate Visionaries inspire the team and stakeholders with an exciting, promising outlook of the future. They have a single-minded passion about the direction of the organization and lead by example with their expertise and reminders about the importance of aligning daily actions with the purpose and vision of the organization.

Strategic Planners

Strategic Planners lead the development of a SLAP! In this role, strategies, goals, and tactics are developed, prioritized, and shared. Strategic thinkers are valued for their focus on delivering existing products and services while, at the same time, evaluating new opportunities, calculating resources, and mitigating risk.

By taking prideful and non-productive decisions out of the equation, the strategic planner sets a logical path for achieving the vision statement within the parameters of the core values and overall purpose of the organization.

Master Delegators

Master Delegators develop and maintain an organizational structure to delegate the execution of the strategic plan to qualified members of the team and focus on accomplishing goals, creating rigorous processes, measuring results, and improving performance and profit.

For many business owners, especially those who are subject matter experts that command high standards, delegation to managers and team members can be a challenge. Through a commitment to personal development, consistent processes, and effective communication about expectations, these owners can learn to lead and earn trust.

Culture Builders

Culture Builders construct a healthy, safe, and thriving environment for managers, employees, teams, and strategic partners to grow, flourish, and innovate, and for customers to receive immense value, give feedback, and become raving fans.

Culture builders realize that right-fit people in a cooperative environment will raise the standards of products, services, and customer service. Wrong-fit people will ultimately bring down the quality of everything the organization does and stands for.

When I introduce this pyramid and roles to clients and audiences, I am often asked “Which Master Role is most important?” The answer has been proven time and time again: building a culture that is healthy, safe, and thriving.The remaining elements cannot be fully realized or executed if the culture is weak, underperforming, or toxic.

There are times when one aspect of leadership is needed more than the others, but overall culture trumps strategy, or as Peter F. Drucker puts it, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

That being said, healthy cultures are developed and constantly fine-tuned out of a comprehensive strategic planning and coaching process (like my SLAP!)that is alive, aligned, executed, and measured. 

With various degrees of experience, training, and natural ability, each of us are competent in some aspects of these Master Roles. The leader of a prosperous organization generates long-term results by learning, being, and doing all of these roles well.

Anyone can get short-term results through fear, intimidation, and a heavy hand. Getting results by doing it yourself, stressing everyone out, and leaving a wake of destruction is not the answer. Sustainable results come from trust, teamwork, and the accomplishment of shared goals.

Ultimately, this means effective business leadership is about getting improved results the right way with the right people for the right reasons. As a leader intent on being more, making more, giving back more, and exiting with more, you understand you will be held accountable for everything your organization produces as well as how those results were produced.

So take a deep look at how well you are doing in each of the Master Roles right now and make a commitment to improve your performance to match your visionary aspirations.

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Sheeba Varghese

Leadership Coach

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Sheeba Varghese

Sheeba is a catalyst for change.   Her passion is reflected in providing leadership training and coaching to men and women who desire to bridge the gap from simply managing day-to-day to becoming exceptional leaders who architect change, innovation and sustainable excellence.  She meets clients where they are, finding ways to customize engagements to best serve the presenting needs of each leader, team or group so they might grow in their response-AGILITY towards others and within situations they find themselves in every day. Her approach is grounded in deep listening, intuitive challenging, and the ability to see to the heart of an issue. Sheeba is a firm believer that “although our lives are a series of defining moments, it is not the moment that defines us, but how we choose to live in them.”

She brings more than 20 years of experience working with individuals to her coaching and training experience, including a background of more than seven years as a certified K-12 teacher. Sheeba’s clients include Emerging Leaders, Managers, Senior Directors, Vice Presidents and Partners seeking leadership excellence within their role and/or teams.  She supports her clients to cultivate a mindset that would maximize their impact which then has translated into laser focused priorities, increased productivity, collaborative teams, and thus an achievement of their goals.  She has worked with clients across a broad range of industries including education, non-profits, solopreneurs, technology, financial services and the creative arts either through 1-1 personalized coaching or by leadership seminars, workshops and webinars.

She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and was just recently selected as Top Leadership Trainer of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) for her outstanding leadership and commitment to the industry.

Five Simple Steps to Thrive in Your Leadership

Often, we spend many months and even years, feeling stuck in the routines of everyday life. Life can become a blur of expectation as slowly, each day rolls into the next.I have been around enough leaders to know and feel when they are simply surviving day to day in their roles and jobs instead of thriving.

Although it’s easy to slip in to survival mode, it doesn’t have to be that way and my encouragement is that you will take the time to be intentional to create moments where you can thrive in your daily life, rather than choosing to simply survive.

Having this mindset will impact every part of your life. Additionally, it will affect the way you lead yourself and others. We have one life and we try to compartmentalize it, but it doesn’t really work that way. I often say, “How we show up in one place is how we show up in many places.” 

Here are 5 simple steps that you can begin to take today to thrive in your leadership:

1. Determine your priorities!

As you interact with employees, see every one as unique and gifted, especially the star employees. Your role as a good boss with outstanding leadership qualities is to find the innate gifts within each one of your fellow employees as you interact with them.

Work with your employees to identify their top two gifts and help them bring those gifts to the projects they are currently working on. A sample list of possible innate gifts includes: Creativity, Facilitating, Listening, Intelligence, Intuiting, Writing, Leading, Researching, Teaching, Developing, Strategizing, Motivating, or Evaluating.

2. Cultivate relationships!

Relationships are at the heart of any business or organization; whether they are relationships within your teams or with your customers. Cultivating these relationships takes time and intentionality. In a time where everything is being done at such a fast rate, I believe this is one aspect that will be the differentiator in your business or organization. 

There is a show that I used to watch called, Undercover Boss. In one of its episodes, the CEO of a yogurt company went undercover to see how his businesses were doing across the country. In this particular episode the CEO was so curious as to what made the difference between 2 locations. They both sold the same products, but one store made considerably more profits. What was the difference you might ask? Customer service and the relationships within the employees of that store. When you treat each other well, it also comes through to your customers, as well.

• Consider how you can grow your relationships within your teams, business and organizations.
• Who will you take time with to get to know on a deeper level?
• How will you let your customers know that they are valued?

Leadership tip: Make time get to know each person on your team apart from the regularly scheduled meetings you have with them.

3. Place boundaries

Place boundaries around your time that will support your priorities, wellness and your personal life! I have heard leaders say at the end of the day, “I feel like I have accomplished nothing today and yet, I was so busy”. I always challenge them to block 2 hours on their calendar that will be focused and without any distractions. Although, they feel it is hard to do in the beginning, they begin to see the value with continued practice.

• What is on your schedule right now that is no longer a good use of your time?
• What is something that can be delegated?
• What should be scheduled that will require focused time?

We all work with the same amount of time every day. However, how we utilize that timecan be the difference between one being productive while the other being busy.

When you honor your time, it will also teach others to honor your time and theirs!

Leadership Tip: Make time to review your calendaring system every quarter to evaluate how your time is being spent.

4. Take time to reflect on your weaknesses

I know many people don’t like to use the word weaknesses. I have no problem with it because at the end of the day, these are the areas in your leadership that can and will eventually impact the expanse and growth of your influence. This may not happen right away because you are able to “mask” your weaknesses with your abilities and intelligence. However, over time, this will inevitably show up.

Interestingly enough, our strengths when it is overused becomes our weakness. So, when leaders tell me any of the following: “I have a hard time saying, ‘no’.; I always see the big picture.;I have trouble asking for help., etc. “,I can also see what their strengths are.

If you have a hard time saying no, you are probably one that loves to connect with people and want to be liked. If you see the big picture, you are probably one with vision for a company. If you have trouble asking for help, it is probably because you can get things done with a great deal of efficiency and you have no problem working independently.

On the flip side, when leaders have a hard time saying, “no”, they will get overwhelmed and the balls that they are juggling will eventually get dropped. If you see the big picture, understanding the details will be important or you will become impulsive and have false starts. If you have trouble asking for help, you will fail to develop others around you and over time you will become overwhelmed.

Take time to reflect on your weaknesses and make a concerted effort to grow in these areas. Those around you will thank you!!

Leadership Tip: Work with a Leadership Coach to gain more awareness around how you show up every day and how you are being perceived by those around you.

5. Acknowledge those are around you

One of the top reasons an employee leaves a company is because they have not been acknowledged. I find this so sad, because there are many things that are outside of our control but acknowledging someone is not. It does not take money. Instead it does take time on your part; time to see who the person is and what they have done. Notice their characteristics and values that have brought about the result that you are seeing and share it with them.

I would encourage you to read The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace written by Dr.Chapman and co-authored by Dr. Paula White. This resource is a valuable tool to help you understand how to encourage people in ways that are meaningful to them as opposed to the way you would like to express or receive appreciation.

• Who is the one person you will acknowledge this month?
• How will you acknowledge this person?

Leadership Tip: If you don’t know how a person likes to be acknowledged, simply ask them.

Great leadership doesn’t require a diploma or a degree. It’s not reserved for some elite group of people.Regardless of the position or title you hold, what is required is a shift in your mindset, an understanding of your identity, and a realization that you influence and impact people on a daily basis through the ways you communicate, manage and relate to others.You have the opportunity and choice to thrive in your leadership. The 5 steps mentioned here are just the beginning.

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