Posts from — August 2007

Everyone has critical skills and knowledge that are important to many other people in the company.

Use Better Titles for Each Person…
Some years ago, when I started in business, the job of the receptionist was to answer the telephone and direct the callers to the appropriate people.

Today, however, her job is far more complicated and, therefore, more important. Since she is the first contact that most customers have with our business, her personality and temperament are extremely important.

Your leadership talents are being constantly tested and challenged. Whether you are leading at work, in the community or at home, the courage to explore your attitudes and aptitudes will be one of your most influential qualities. Courage and change go hand in hand when it comes to increasing your effectiveness as a leader.

As you review these ten statements ask yourself, “Where do I need to change, grow and stretch to reach my full capacity?”

Advancing Your Career…
As your career advances, you move along the scale from employee, to supervisor to manager and finally, to leader. Managers, and some leaders, engage in what is called transactional leadership, the deployment and management of people and resources to get results.

Arouse Emotion In Others…
However, at the highest end of the leadership scale, we come to what is called “transformational leadership.”

Transformational leadership is defined as leadership that arouses emotion, that taps into the emotional and spiritual resources of an organization. Transformational leadership empowers people to greatly exceed their previous levels of accomplishment.

Most all of us would like everyone on our teams to be more creative (including ourselves). We celebrate the creative genius, dream of the breakthrough product or service idea, and marvel at those who can make these things happen.

As a leader you know that higher levels of creativity can make your teams more successful, productive and feel more satisfied in their work. The upsides to high levels of creativity are many. The downsides are few, but the biggest one is people’s fear of making a mistake, being wrong or failing.

The pace of change impacting practice managers has never been greater. From consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions to re-engineering profit centers, managers are faced with what often appears to be “crisis” situations. And with crisis comes the fact that staff (and physicians) often experience anxiety, the off-shoot of fear.

The following vignette offers practical lessons for handling the fear and resultant anxiety which come with unexpected and unwanted change. While this true-life situation occurred in the clouds, the concepts are very much grounded in reality. Its lessons can be carried into the office, hospital, or lab.

One of my friends is in the Navy. He recently shared a story with me that I thought had implications for the business world. He relayed the story of a uniform inspection.

A few days before an upcoming inspection, he found a cover (or hat) that is normally white but this one was light blue. It was obviously a gag and being sold in the store on base. He bought it and then placed it in his locker.