Competition vs Collaboration

Compete or collaborate, which is better to achieve your business goals? The answer: both. Each have positive qualities that can be used to create new pathways for all. It’s really about focusing on a clear goal and outcome that creates benefits for all. We have seen the beauty of this model over and over in many ways:

"I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it."
Walt Disney

• Twitter – a voice to change the world
• Etsy – an artisans bazaar
• Paypal- a bank for the internet
• Wikipedia – knowledge for the masses
• Coursera – education for the curious
• Uber – an innovative way to travel
• The iPod – music for the masses
• PC – personal computing and communication
• IndieGoGo – funding for the creative
• Starbucks – coffee and community
• Agile Method – faster and better development
• Skype – global communications
• Velcro – sealing the...

Grounded & Authentic Leadership

To be a leader in your profession requires coming from your center, your truth. In addition, you need to be able to clearly articulate what is important and why. You can no longer “walk the talk.” This world needs you to “talk what you are walking” so people can see the path and the road ahead.

"If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn’t be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.”
― Warren G. Bennis

Here are seven practices to keep you grounded and authentic as a leader:

1. Manage Expectations – understand in every situation what others expect of you. Ask questions. Define the best way you can participate in the situation. Reflect whether that is something you can meet or not and speak to it.

2. Define Purpose – know your purpose in any situation. Look...

Change is constant and around us all the time.

A leader's job is to determine the best direction the winds can take you, stay on course and manage growth. Here are eight imperatives to guide yourself and others through change:

1. Be Mindful. Maintain a close connection to the market and your customers. Understand what is important to them, their vision, what they are investing in, and what keeps them up at night.

2. Know Your Purpose. Have a clear vision and purpose of your company, organization and/or team so that when confusion and distractions abound (and they will), you can come home to your purpose, your vision, your goals.

3. Be Decisive. The ability to make decisions is imperative to creating flow in any organization. The truth you need to accept as a leader is that sometimes people will make wrong decisions. How you handle this will either create a more productive or a slower organization. Better to help realign than malign people.

4. Engage. Our world is mostly an...

"One of the most prestigious accomplishments a leader can earn is the genuine respect of the people they serve"
Bobby Compton

Leadership Cred: Earning and maintaining respect is not for the faint of heart.

Not all bosses can lead. And leaders seldom boss. People willingly follow someone they respect. Earning and maintaining that respect is not for the faint of heart. It takes work.

If you are in a position that can influence others or have power to make decisions that impact others, you have the opportunity to develop as a leader. Everyday and every interaction is an opportunity to exercise your leadership skills. Developing good ones take time, commitment, training, mentoring and coaching.

You become a leader in progress because every time you grow and adapt you move to a new plateau. And each plateau brings a new set of challenges that require new skills. Recognizing and using these daily practices of leadership will help you earn your leadership cred:

1. It is not about you. It...

Building trust is vital to leadership.

Leaders are dealing with doubts, fears and uncertainty of decisions and emotions every day. In a time of great unrest and change, having solid core skills to combat doubt and uncertainty, which erodes the trust, is essential. Eight skills to develop to keep strong:

1. Get Clarity
Define what you believe in and be able to articulate it clearly.

2. Get Perspective
When you are going to communicate a message of change or challenge, vet it first amongst peers and naysayers. Get many perspectives and be prepared to answer and respond to the questions.

3. Be Open
Remember doubt comes through questions and this provides an open door to learning, growth, and engagement for all involved.

4. Be Generous
Share with others small wins you have seen or experienced by moving in this direction. Share the risks you have vetted and mitigated before beginning the journey.

5. Speak Truth
State their fears, doubts and uncertainties and shine the light on them. Share...

Improve Your Communications

In an increasingly dynamic and complex world a successful leader is distinguished by the ability to communicate well, across a variety of mediums. Here are 10 practices to improve your communications:

1. Embrace conflict.
When there is tension, acknowledge it and seek to understand the situation and the expectations, and strive for the best outcome for all involved.

2. Reach Out.
Initiate a relationship rather than waiting for an appropriate moment like a business-related conversation.

3. Appreciate differences.
Take time to celebrate how differences make the whole better, whether it is in culture, thought or background.

4. Speak truth.
Articulate what is working or not for a given situation or communication; this helps you grow as well as those around you.

5. Develop others.
Help people identify and tap into their underutilized skills and abilities through your conversations and expectations.

6. Be Clear.
Find a way for others to get what they need in the...

Speaking your truth creates growth and expanded momentum.

What I have observed in others and myself is that from the courage to speak one's truth, no matter how different or roughly framed it comes out, new insights and from them, new growth result.

When leaders feel safe to share their deepest truth out loud it comes to life and nurtures thought and an open response instead of rattling around in their brain where it withers unheard, unacknowledged and un-tested.

When a leader is perceived to be speaking truthfully, without hidden agendas, without need for personal validation, what is said is better heard for its own merits and encourages others to do likewise and provide their "truths." This allows truth-tellers to discover deeper, different meanings that extend beyond the original premise of their truth. The outcome is new, collaborative thinking and dialogue that creates growth, discovery and curiosity.

Five keys to achieving this kind of quality sharing are:

1. Self-respecting...

Leadership requires you to see the greatness in others and support them until their total abilities are unleashed. This is not easy and is often thankless work. That said, the moment you see another at their fullest potential is indescribable and deeply rewarding.

Ten practices for you to create great leaders:

1. Set a high bar and provide situations and opportunities for people to reach it.

2. Collaborate with you team. Define clear goals and expected outcomes and then get out of the way; don’t get involved with the how.

3. Develop critical thinking skills in others.

4. Trust. Let go of the need to give advice or add their input and trust others to take it from concept to results.

5. Focus on success. Don’t pick at mistakes or problems. Keep planning to move an idea forward.

6. Provide clear parameters and expectations to achieve results and make good decisions.

7. Ask questions to help others grow their thinking and capacity.

8. Create an environment of success where...

A curious leader knows that "curiosity is the gateway to opportunity."

Both personal curiosity and that inspired and encouraged in others. Not the intrusive curiosity of the voyeur, snoop, busybody or idle prier. It is curiosity that is the gateway to opportunity.

It is the curiosity that celebrates unfolding possibilities and discovering new information. It delights in unique insights and varied experiences that individual members can bring to a group and from its diversity, the unity of a shared vision, agreed upon goals, strategy and an exciting adventure that generates enthusiasm and energy.

Curiosity requires leaders to be in learning mode. When leaders are curious and open they are connected to others and to ideas that create good synergy –and SUCCESS!

The benefits coming from a place of curiosity are clear:

• Leaders are experienced as authentic
• People speak openly
• There is a collaborative mindset in conversations
• People feel included and connected as a leader...

Listen Beyond What is Being Said

One great practice for today's leaders is to listen beyond what is being said. Taking time to understand what is the truth of a situation creates solid results and earns the respect of others.

Learn to open up conversation "by starting with the best interpretation of a situation" and ask the following questions:

• What led us to this decision?
• What would make this project, situation, decision, product, etc even better?
• What idea have you had that you have not yet voiced?
• What else could we do to achieve our goal in a better way?
• I sense there is more going on than is being said, could you help me understand?

The practice of honing your listening skills will exponentially accelerate the growth of your leadership skills.

Don't be good, be great!

Related: 15 Tips to Build a Good Plan

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said."

Peter Drucker

Ready to hit your goals? It starts with your communication. Learn more about...