There is a recent "dust up" about Eric Holder's (Attorney General in the US) 5 day trip to the Caribbean Islands at a time when government spending is supposed to be curtailed and expenses cut back.
It brings back memories of being with a Fortune 100 USA company, and we were advised that we had to reduce costs: travel, phone calls, and office expenses. We were called into the Executive's office and told that telephone bills would be closely scrutinized for personal calls, trip expenses and justifications would be closely monitored and prior approval had to be obtained, and even checking out pencils and pens now had to be signed out and accounted for by our assistants, with a final review by the Executive.
Two weeks later, there was a senior executive meeting to be held in Monte Carlo, which was over a week long. Needless to say this did not engender any good morale or engagement building! Quite the opposite.
Another related situation occurred when a CEO asked for candid feedback about areas that could be improved within our divisions. The first senior manager called upon, discussed those areas where he could improve, and those he could personally improve upon also. The CEO proceeded to lashed into the manager for over 15 minutes. After that, the other Manager reports were merely stated factually and skirted the issues where improvements could be made.
When you are trying to build engagement and trust, not walking your talk, seriously undermines your messages and interrupts candid and needed communications by a CEO, senior manager or leader. It also negatively affects Charisma for those who want to engender that view.
So always try to be consistent and sincere, others will know if you are not!
Showing posts with label Charisma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charisma. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Charisma can be Taught and Learned
In an earlier posting concerning a presentation I gave at the HR Training Congress in August, entitled:
Linking People, Strategy and Performance to Engagement and Training: "Revolutionary Research from Global Corporations"
Profiles International (PI) identified in new research in January 2011, and published in a book found on Amazon.com, entitled "Leadership Charisma", that Charisma, and Leadership Charisma in particular, is behavior based. Thus it is learn-able, can be coached, developed, and it can be trained. This is also supported and discussed by a recent article by Jessica Stillman entitled: "Charm 101: Charisma can be Taught". (The article can be found below).
PI's research was based on over 40,000 Managers and 400,000 employees world-wide, and it seems that more people and companies are becoming convinced of this fact, which before had only been debated without hard facts and research.
Why is Charisma important? Because Charismatic Leaders have been documented in numerous studies in the past, to have companies and teams that deliver even higher profitability and even more extraordinary products, than those with just good Leadership. This is accomplished through heightened "engagement".
Therefore, there is a cost benefit to hiring, or even more so now, developing and/or training managers to not only be good Leaders, but to become Charismatic Leaders. The ROI will easily justify training costs to develop Leadership Charisma in Managers!
So what are you and your HR team waiting for? Isn't it best to start now in developing even more effective Leaders especially grooming potential CEOs and Senior Executives? The choice is yours, but it is no longer a point to debate, but only a point to implement.
(MoneyWatch) 
With the death of Steve Jobs, the media's attention has turned to his legacy as a business leader and his ability to inspire teams to create extraordinary products. The man, in short, may have been prickly but he was also extremely charismatic.
Where does that ability to spellbind others to your cause come from? His biographer plumbed Jobs' past for answers, but recently psychologists took a more hands-on approach to the origins of charisma, testing whether this elusive and valuable quality can be explicitly taught.
Turns out, the answer appears to be yes. Researchers out of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland decided to see if charisma boot camp would be effective, conducting 360-degree evaluations of 34 managers and then sending them to a three-month charisma training course where they learned what the researchers dubbed CLTs or charismatic leader tactics. These include verbal techniques such as:
To double check the results, the researchers also asked 41 MBA students to give the same speech before and after undergoing charisma training. After learning to master their CLTs, the MBA candidates were rated more trustworthy, competent, influential, and moving when they gave their speech.
There are caveats for potential student of charisma. The researchers warn that a significant time commitment is need to improve charisma -- remember their course lasted three months, not a matter of hours. And it's also likely that when a student starts actively attempting to become more charismatic, their performance may get worse before it gets better as their attempts to appear charismatic often come off as stilted and stereotypical at first, leading to more laughs than loyalty.
Still, for the charisma challenged, the research shows that more traits that we think of as inborn are actually teachable. That's good news for those who need to be more charismatic to advance in their careers and perhaps also a call to action for others who have given up on gaining leadership skills because they thought they simply lacked the knack.
Linking People, Strategy and Performance to Engagement and Training: "Revolutionary Research from Global Corporations"
Profiles International (PI) identified in new research in January 2011, and published in a book found on Amazon.com, entitled "Leadership Charisma", that Charisma, and Leadership Charisma in particular, is behavior based. Thus it is learn-able, can be coached, developed, and it can be trained. This is also supported and discussed by a recent article by Jessica Stillman entitled: "Charm 101: Charisma can be Taught". (The article can be found below).
PI's research was based on over 40,000 Managers and 400,000 employees world-wide, and it seems that more people and companies are becoming convinced of this fact, which before had only been debated without hard facts and research.
Why is Charisma important? Because Charismatic Leaders have been documented in numerous studies in the past, to have companies and teams that deliver even higher profitability and even more extraordinary products, than those with just good Leadership. This is accomplished through heightened "engagement".
Therefore, there is a cost benefit to hiring, or even more so now, developing and/or training managers to not only be good Leaders, but to become Charismatic Leaders. The ROI will easily justify training costs to develop Leadership Charisma in Managers!
So what are you and your HR team waiting for? Isn't it best to start now in developing even more effective Leaders especially grooming potential CEOs and Senior Executives? The choice is yours, but it is no longer a point to debate, but only a point to implement.
Charm 101: Charisma Can Be Taught
With the death of Steve Jobs, the media's attention has turned to his legacy as a business leader and his ability to inspire teams to create extraordinary products. The man, in short, may have been prickly but he was also extremely charismatic.Where does that ability to spellbind others to your cause come from? His biographer plumbed Jobs' past for answers, but recently psychologists took a more hands-on approach to the origins of charisma, testing whether this elusive and valuable quality can be explicitly taught.
Turns out, the answer appears to be yes. Researchers out of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland decided to see if charisma boot camp would be effective, conducting 360-degree evaluations of 34 managers and then sending them to a three-month charisma training course where they learned what the researchers dubbed CLTs or charismatic leader tactics. These include verbal techniques such as:
- Framing through metaphor
- Stories and anecdotes
- Demonstrating moral conviction
- Sharing the sentiments of the collective
- Setting high expectations
- Communicating confidence
- Using rhetorical devices such as contrasts, lists, and rhetorical questions
To double check the results, the researchers also asked 41 MBA students to give the same speech before and after undergoing charisma training. After learning to master their CLTs, the MBA candidates were rated more trustworthy, competent, influential, and moving when they gave their speech.
There are caveats for potential student of charisma. The researchers warn that a significant time commitment is need to improve charisma -- remember their course lasted three months, not a matter of hours. And it's also likely that when a student starts actively attempting to become more charismatic, their performance may get worse before it gets better as their attempts to appear charismatic often come off as stilted and stereotypical at first, leading to more laughs than loyalty.
Still, for the charisma challenged, the research shows that more traits that we think of as inborn are actually teachable. That's good news for those who need to be more charismatic to advance in their careers and perhaps also a call to action for others who have given up on gaining leadership skills because they thought they simply lacked the knack.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Innovation and Visioning in the 20th and 21st Century
In the earlier blog posting, below( http://executiveandhrguidance.blogspot.com/2011/10/innovation-in-21st-century-and-steve.html ), Steve Jobs was described as a visionary and futurist. He took ideas and morphed them, using newer technology, slimmer packaging, modernizing the appearance of an item, and/or recognizing there was a need (recognized or hidden) which could be addressed. Through his charisma and communication he could open new markets or grow existing markets at a much faster pace than had happened earlier.
In the 1950's NASA started designing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Space programs around concepts that did not exist at the time. NASA helped to fuel innovation and new products by committing to a need in the near or foreseeable future by agreeing to purchase those items once they were developed within established time-frames.
The US Air Force did the same thing when they started conceptualizing the C-5A Galaxy(Lockheed). In this specific case, they identified the need to airlift large, heavy payloads long distances for what was called the Heavy Logistics Systems project. This aircraft was very sophisticated. It had multiple computer systems with backups, in case of inflight failure.
For example, at the time, if there was an error light, it would rank the probability of what was causing the error, the nearest location to land, the nearest place for obtaining a replacement part, and estimated downtime. Practically unheard of at that time, in the late 1960's.
Many of the advancements were never used because of fear of a possible crash and few simulators that could train pilots on it's use. The C-5 could land with cross-winds by heading into the wind, with the landing gear/wheels pointed in a different direction going down a runway.
Looking into the future and holding visioning exercises, helps organizations to remain flexible, with a view to change, while anticipating possible challenges and competitors, many which come sooner than expected. These exercises help to build teams while also coming up with new ideas or concepts that might not have been contemplated by the company, otherwise. They also contribute to the strategic plan and in many cases succession planning needs.
In spite of some saying that things change too fast to really plan, because the plan is outdated before it is written, they overlook the benefits in building more dynamic, cooperative, and communicative organizations while improving morale, engagement and the strong possibilities of identifying innovative or improved processes or products/services.
Shouldn't your organization contemplate visioning sessions? If not, why not?
In the 1950's NASA started designing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Space programs around concepts that did not exist at the time. NASA helped to fuel innovation and new products by committing to a need in the near or foreseeable future by agreeing to purchase those items once they were developed within established time-frames.
The US Air Force did the same thing when they started conceptualizing the C-5A Galaxy(Lockheed). In this specific case, they identified the need to airlift large, heavy payloads long distances for what was called the Heavy Logistics Systems project. This aircraft was very sophisticated. It had multiple computer systems with backups, in case of inflight failure.
For example, at the time, if there was an error light, it would rank the probability of what was causing the error, the nearest location to land, the nearest place for obtaining a replacement part, and estimated downtime. Practically unheard of at that time, in the late 1960's.
Many of the advancements were never used because of fear of a possible crash and few simulators that could train pilots on it's use. The C-5 could land with cross-winds by heading into the wind, with the landing gear/wheels pointed in a different direction going down a runway.
Looking into the future and holding visioning exercises, helps organizations to remain flexible, with a view to change, while anticipating possible challenges and competitors, many which come sooner than expected. These exercises help to build teams while also coming up with new ideas or concepts that might not have been contemplated by the company, otherwise. They also contribute to the strategic plan and in many cases succession planning needs.
In spite of some saying that things change too fast to really plan, because the plan is outdated before it is written, they overlook the benefits in building more dynamic, cooperative, and communicative organizations while improving morale, engagement and the strong possibilities of identifying innovative or improved processes or products/services.
Shouldn't your organization contemplate visioning sessions? If not, why not?
Monday, September 19, 2011
No Charisma, No Funding - Harvard Business Review - Comments about Charisma
Given my earlier post on Leadership Charisma and the findings by Profiles International about Charisma being behavior based and hence trainable/learnable - this new research is encouraging because when Startups are looking for the right CEO, the "pool" of executives will be much larger. Below are two links and the summary of the article from Harvard's Business Review.
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/01/harvard_study_c.php
Executives at a party, were fitted with devices that recorded 'social signals' such as their tone of voice, gesticuation, and proximity to others.
Defend Your Research: We Can Measure the Power of Charisma - Harvard Business Review
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/01/harvard_study_c.php
Wow. No Charisma, No Funding - Says Study In Harvard Business Review
Posted by Tom Foremski - January 21, 2010
Startups should put away their business plans and find a charismatic CEO if they want to raise funding. That seems to be the finding of a study reported in the Harvard Business Review:Executives at a party, were fitted with devices that recorded 'social signals' such as their tone of voice, gesticuation, and proximity to others.
Five days later the same executives presented business plans to a panel of judges in a contest. Without reading or hearing the pitches, Pentland correctly forecast the winners, using only data collected at the party.This study is one of several that found that it is possible to predict who will succeed in salary negotiations, and in other business activities. The researchers say they are monitoring 'honest signals." Professor Sandy Pentland says that 'honest signals' is a biological term.
They're the nonverbal cues that social species use to coordinate themselves--gestures, expressions, tone. Humans use many types of signals, but honest signals are unusual in that they cause changes in the receiver of the signal. . . If I'm happy, it almost literally rubs off on you.He added:
The more successful people are more energetic. They talk more, but they also listen more. They spend more face-to-face time with others. . . It's not just what they project that makes them charismatic; it's what they elicit. The more of these energetic, positive people you put on a team, the better the team's performance.Read the rest of this article here on Harvard Business Review:
Defend Your Research: We Can Measure the Power of Charisma - Harvard Business Review
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Leadership Charisma and Engagment: Presentation given August 26, 2011
Leadership Charisma: Linking People, Strategy and Performance to Engagement and Training: "Revolutionary Research from Global Corporations" is a presentation I gave at the HR & Training Congress held in Ortigas, MetroManila, Philippines on August 25-26, 2011.
The material presented was based around recent research on Leadership and in particular Charisma that has been released by Profiles International in January 2011 and documented in the book Leadership Charisma, currently 115th on Amazon’s Best Seller’s List.
Leadership Charisma eBook at Amazon.com
This startling research can tie people, strategy and performance to heightened Workplace Engagement, resulting in increased: Retention, Sales, and Profitability. The key is that the research dispels the myth that Charisma is only innate. Charisma can be learned and is based on over 40,000 Leaders and 400,000 people who rated these leaders.
The presentation was broken into 4 sections: Engagement (what it means to an organization), Leadership (and it's importance to an organization), Leadership Charisma (the conclusion of the research from the book) and the results of the research which leads to Training/Learning that can be held within a company.
If interested in receiving a copy of the presentation, please contact me or leave a comment and I will be happy to send you what was presented or click on this Link to view some of the slides:
Presentation on Engagement and Leadership Charisma
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