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Every leader has someone behind the scenes supporting them. This beautiful woman (my fiancé) is always supporting me as I learn to become an effective leader in education.

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Anonymous

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VIDEO: Colin Powell: The Essence of Leadership

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VIDEO: Colin Powell: The Essence of Leadership

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This is a great video by Colin Powell. He describes his view on leadership. I found it interesting that the first word he uses to describe leadership is "trust."

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An excellent summation of the essence of leadership by General Colin Powell

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By: Rob Moreau

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Personal Leadership Philosophy - Rob Moreau 5.6.18.pdf

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Stretching Leadership: A Distributed Perspective for School Counselor Leaders

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Stretching Leadership: A Distributed Perspective for School Counselor Leaders

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Stretching Leadership - A Distributed Perspective for School Counselor Leaders.pdf

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VIDEO: Roselinde Torres: What it takes to be a great leader

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VIDEO: Roselinde Torres: What it takes to be a great leader

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Roselinde Torres: What it takes to be a great leader

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There are many leadership programs available today, from 1-day workshops to corporate training programs. But chances are, these won't really help. In this clear, candid talk, Roselinde Torres describes 25 years observing truly great leaders at work, and shares the three simple but crucial questions would-be company chiefs need to ask to thrive in the future.

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By: Daniel Goleman

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Idea in Brief

The Problem

A primary task of leadership is to direct attention. To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention.

The Argument

People commonly think of "being focused" as filtering out distractions while concentrating on one thing. But a wealth of recent neuroscience research shows that we focus attention in many ways, for different purposes, while drawing on different neural pathways.

The Solution

Every leader needs to cultivate a triad of awareness-an inward focus, a focus on others, and an outward focus. Focusing inward and focusing on others helps leaders cultivate emotional intelligence. Focusing outward can improve their ability to devise strategy, innovate, and manage organizations.

A primary task of leadership is to direct attention. To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention. When we speak about being focused, we commonly mean thinking about one thing while filtering out distractions. But a wealth of recent research in neuroscience shows that we focus in many ways, for different purposes, drawing on different neural pathways-some of which work in concert, while others tend to stand in opposition.

Grouping these modes of attention into three broad buckets-focusing on yourself, focusing on others, and focusing on the wider world -sheds new light on the practice of many essential leadership skills. Focusing inward and focusing constructively on others helps leaders cultivate the primary elements of emotional intelligence. A fuller understanding of how they focus on the wider world can improve their ability to devise strategy, innovate, and manage organizations.

Every leader needs to cultivate this triad of awareness, in abundance and in the proper balance, because a failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided.

Focusing on Yourself

Emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness-getting in touch with your inner voice. Leaders who heed their inner voices can draw on more resources to make better decisions and connect with their authentic selves. But what does that entail? A look at how people focus inward can make this abstract concept more concrete.

Self-awareness.

Hearing your inner voice is a matter of paying careful attention to internal physiological signals. These subtle cues are monitored by the insula, which is tucked behind the frontal lobes of the brain. Attention given to any part of the body amps up the insula's sensitivity to that part. Tune in to your heartbeat, and the insula activates more neurons in that circuitry. How well people can sense their heartbeats has, in fact, become a standard way to measure their self-awareness.

Gut feelings are messages from the insula and the amygdala, which the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, of the University of Southern California, calls somatic markers. Those messages are sensations that something "feels" right or wrong. Somatic markers simplify decision making by guiding our attention toward better options. They're hardly foolproof (how often was that feeling that you left the stove on correct?), so the more comprehensively we read them, the better we use our intuition. (See "Are You Skimming This Sidebar?")

Do you have trouble remembering what someone has just told you in conversation? Did you drive to work this morning on autopilot? Do you focus more on your smartphone than on the person you're having lunch with?

Attention is a mental muscle; like any other muscle, it can be strengthened through the right kind of exercise. The fundamental rep for building deliberate attention is simple: When your mind wanders, notice that it has wandered, bring it back to your desired point of focus, and keep it there as long as you can. That basic exercise is at the root of virtually every kind of meditation. Meditation builds concentration and calmness and facilitates recovery from the agitation of stress.

So does a video game called Tenacity, now in development by a design group and neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin. Slated for release in 2014, the game offers a leisurely journey through any of half a dozen scenes, from a barren desert to a fantasy staircase spiraling heavenward. At the beginner's level you tap an iPad screen with one finger every time you exhale; the challenge is to tap two fingers with every fifth breath. As you move to higher levels, you're presented with more distractions-a helicopter flies into view, a plane does a flip, a flock of birds suddenly scud by.

When players are attuned to the rhythm of their breathing, they experience the strengthening of selective attention as a feeling of calm focus, as in meditation. Stanford University is exploring that connection at its Calming Technology Lab, which is developing relaxing devices, such as a belt that detects your breathing rate. Should a chock-full in-box, for instance, trigger what has been called e-mail apnea, an iPhone app can guide you through exercises to calm your breathing and your mind.

Consider, for example, the implications of an analysis of interviews conducted by a group of British researchers with 118 professional traders and 10 senior managers at four City of London investment banks. The most successful traders (whose annual income averaged £500,000) were neither the ones who relied entirely on analytics nor the ones who just went with their guts. They focused on a full range of emotions, which they used to judge the value of their intuition. When they suffered losses, they acknowledged their anxiety, became more cautious, and took fewer risks. The least successful traders (whose income averaged only £100,000) tended to ignore their anxiety and keep going with their guts. Because they failed to heed a wider array of internal signals, they were misled.

Zeroing in on sensory impressions of ourselves in the moment is one major element of self-awareness. But another is critical to leadership: combining our experiences across time into a coherent view of our authentic selves.

To be authentic is to be the same person to others as you are to yourself. In part that entails paying attention to what others think of you, particularly people whose opinions you esteem and who will be candid in their feedback. A variety of focus that is useful here is open awareness, in which we broadly notice what's going on around us without getting caught up in or swept away by any particular thing. In this mode we don't judge, censor, or tune out; we simply perceive.

Leaders who are more accustomed to giving input than to receiving it may find this tricky. Someone who has trouble sustaining open awareness typically gets snagged by irritating details, such as fellow travelers in the airport security line who take forever getting their carry-ons into the scanner. Someone who can keep her attention in open mode will notice the travelers but not worry about them, and will take in more of her surroundings. (See the sidebar "Expand Your Awareness.")

Just as a camera lens can be set narrowly on a single point or more widely to take in a panoramic view, you can focus tightly or expansively.

One measure of open awareness presents people with a stream of letters and numbers, such as S, K, O, E, 4, R, T, 2, H, P. In scanning the stream, many people will notice the first number, 4, but after that their attention blinks. Those firmly in open awareness mode will register the second number as well.

Strengthening the ability to maintain open awareness requires leaders to do something that verges on the unnatural: cultivate at least sometimes a willingness to not be in control, not offer up their own views, not judge others. That's less a matter of deliberate action than of attitude adjustment.

One path to making that adjustment is through the classic power of positive thinking, because pessimism narrows our focus, whereas positive emotions widen our attention and our receptiveness to the new and unexpected. A simple way to shift into positive mode is to ask yourself, "If everything worked out perfectly in my life, what would I be doing in 10 years?" Why is that effective? Because when you're in an upbeat mood, the University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found, your brain's left prefrontal area lights up. That area harbors the circuitry that reminds us how great we'll feel when we reach some long-sought goal.

"Talking about positive goals and dreams activates brain centers that open you up to new possibilities," says Richard Boyatzis, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve. "But if you change the conversation to what you should do to fix yourself, it closes you down....You need the negative to survive, but the positive to thrive."

Of course, being open to input doesn't guarantee that someone will provide it. Sadly, life affords us few chances to learn how others really see us, and even fewer for executives as they rise through the ranks. That may be why one of the most popular and overenrolled courses at Harvard Business School is Bill George's Authentic Leadership Development, in which George has created what he calls True North groups to heighten this aspect of self-awareness.

These groups (which anyone can form) are based on the precept that self-knowledge begins with self-revelation. Accordingly, they are open and intimate, "a safe place," George explains, "where members can discuss personal issues they do not feel they can raise elsewhere-often not even with their closest family members." What good does that do? "We don't know who we are until we hear ourselves speaking the story of our lives to those we trust," George says. It's a structured way to match our view of our true selves with the views our most trusted colleagues have-an external check on our authenticity.

Self-control.

"Cognitive control" is the scientific term for putting one's attention where one wants it and keeping it there in the face of temptation to wander. This focus is one aspect of the brain's executive function, which is located in the prefrontal cortex. A colloquial term for it is "willpower."

Cognitive control enables executives to pursue a goal despite distractions and setbacks. The same neural circuitry that allows such a single-minded pursuit of goals also manages unruly emotions. Good cognitive control can be seen in people who stay calm in a crisis, tame their own agitation, and recover from a debacle or defeat.

Decades' worth of research demonstrates the singular importance of willpower to leadership success. Particularly compelling is a longitudinal study tracking the fates of all 1,037 children born during a single year in the 1970s in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. For several years during childhood the children were given a battery of tests of willpower, including the psychologist Walter Mischel's legendary "marshmallow test"-a choice between eating one marshmallow right away and getting two by waiting 15 minutes. In Mischel's experiments, roughly a third of children grab the marshmallow on the spot, another third hold out for a while longer, and a third manage to make it through the entire quarter hour.

Years later, when the children in the Dunedin study were in their 30s and all but 4% of them had been tracked down again, the researchers found that those who'd had the cognitive control to resist the marshmallow longest were significantly healthier, more successful financially, and more law-abiding than the ones who'd been unable to hold out at all. In fact, statistical analysis showed that a child's level of self-control was a more powerful predictor of financial success than IQ, social class, or family circumstance.

How we focus holds the key to exercising willpower, Mischel says. Three subvarieties of cognitive control are at play when you pit self-restraint against self-gratification: the ability to voluntarily disengage your focus from an object of desire; the ability to resist distraction so that you don't gravitate back to that object; and the ability to concentrate on the future goal and imagine how good you will feel when you achieve it. As adults the children of Dunedin may have been held hostage to their younger selves, but they need not have been, because the power to focus can be developed. (See the sidebar "Learning Self-Restraint.")

Quick, now. Here's a test of cognitive control. In what direction is the middle arrow in each row pointing?

The test, called the Eriksen Flanker Task, gauges your susceptibility to distraction. When it's taken under laboratory conditions, differences of a thousandth of a second can be detected in the speed with which subjects perceive which direction the middle arrows are pointing. The stronger their cognitive control, the less susceptible they are to distraction.

Interventions to strengthen cognitive control can be as unsophisticated as a game of Simon Says or Red Light-any exercise in which you are asked to stop on cue. Research suggests that the better a child gets at playing Musical Chairs, the stronger his or her prefrontal wiring for cognitive control will become.

Operating on a similarly simple principle is a social and emotional learning (SEL) method that's used to strengthen cognitive control in schoolchildren across the United States. When confronted by an upsetting problem, the children are told to think of a traffic signal. The red light means stop, calm down, and think before you act. The yellow light means slow down and think of several possible solutions. The green light means try out a plan and see how it works. Thinking in these terms allows the children to shift away from amygdala-driven impulses to prefrontal-driven deliberate behavior.

It's never too late for adults to strengthen these circuits as well. Daily sessions of mindfulness practice work in a way similar to Musical Chairs and SEL. In these sessions you focus your attention on your breathing and practice tracking your thoughts and feelings without getting swept away by them. Whenever you notice that your mind has wandered, you simply return it to your breath. It sounds easy-but try it for 10 minutes, and you'll find there's a learning curve.

Focusing on Others

The word "attention" comes from the Latin attendere, meaning "to reach toward." This is a perfect definition of focus on others, which is the foundation of empathy and of an ability to build social relationships-the second and third pillars of emotional intelligence.

Executives who can effectively focus on others are easy to recognize. They are the ones who find common ground, whose opinions carry the most weight, and with whom other people want to work. They emerge as natural leaders regardless of organizational or social rank.

The empathy triad.

We talk about empathy most commonly as a single attribute. But a close look at where leaders are focusing when they exhibit it reveals three distinct kinds, each important for leadership effectiveness:

cognitive empathy-the ability to understand another person's perspective;

emotional empathy-the ability to feel what someone else feels;

empathic concern-the ability to sense what another person needs from you.

Cognitive empathy enables leaders to explain themselves in meaningful ways-a skill essential to getting the best performance from their direct reports. Contrary to what you might expect, exercising cognitive empathy requires leaders to think about feelings rather than to feel them directly.

An inquisitive nature feeds cognitive empathy. As one successful executive with this trait puts it, "I've always just wanted to learn everything, to understand anybody that I was around-why they thought what they did, why they did what they did, what worked for them, and what didn't work." But cognitive empathy is also an outgrowth of self-awareness. The executive circuits that allow us to think about our own thoughts and to monitor the feelings that flow from them let us apply the same reasoning to other people's minds when we choose to direct our attention that way.

Further Reading

Managing Yourself Feature

The origins of attention deficit trait, and how to control it in today's busy organizations.

Emotional empathy is important for effective mentoring, managing clients, and reading group dynamics. It springs from ancient parts of the brain beneath the cortex-the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the orbitofrontal cortex-that allow us to feel fast without thinking deeply. They tune us in by arousing in our bodies the emotional states of others: I literally feel your pain. My brain patterns match up with yours when I listen to you tell a gripping story. As Tania Singer, the director of the social neuroscience department at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, in Leipzig, says, "You need to understand your own feelings to understand the feelings of others." Accessing your capacity for emotional empathy depends on combining two kinds of attention: a deliberate focus on your own echoes of someone else's feelings and an open awareness of that person's face, voice, and other external signs of emotion. (See the sidebar "When Empathy Needs to Be Learned.")

Emotional empathy can be developed. That's the conclusion suggested by research conducted with physicians by Helen Riess, the director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. To help the physicians monitor themselves, she set up a program in which they learned to focus using deep, diaphragmatic breathing and to cultivate a certain detachment-to watch an interaction from the ceiling, as it were, rather than being lost in their own thoughts and feelings. "Suspending your own involvement to observe what's going on gives you a mindful awareness of the interaction without being completely reactive," says Riess. "You can see if your own physiology is charged up or balanced. You can notice what's transpiring in the situation." If a doctor realizes that she's feeling irritated, for instance, that may be a signal that the patient is bothered too.

Those who are utterly at a loss may be able to prime emotional empathy essentially by faking it until they make it, Riess adds. If you act in a caring way-looking people in the eye and paying attention to their expressions, even when you don't particularly want to-you may start to feel more engaged.

Empathic concern, which is closely related to emotional empathy, enables you to sense not just how people feel but what they need from you. It's what you want in your doctor, your spouse-and your boss. Empathic concern has its roots in the circuitry that compels parents' attention to their children. Watch where people's eyes go when someone brings an adorable baby into a room, and you'll see this mammalian brain center leaping into action.

One neural theory holds that the response is triggered in the amygdala by the brain's radar for sensing danger and in the prefrontal cortex by the release of oxytocin, the chemical for caring. This implies that empathic concern is a double-edged feeling. We intuitively experience the distress of another as our own. But in deciding whether we will meet that person's needs, we deliberately weigh how much we value his or her well-being.

Getting this intuition-deliberation mix right has great implications. Those whose sympathetic feelings become too strong may themselves suffer. In the helping professions, this can lead to compassion fatigue; in executives, it can create distracting feelings of anxiety about people and circumstances that are beyond anyone's control. But those who protect themselves by deadening their feelings may lose touch with empathy. Empathic concern requires us to manage our personal distress without numbing ourselves to the pain of others. (See the sidebar "When Empathy Needs to Be Controlled.")

Getting a grip on our impulse to empathize with other people's feelings can help us make better decisions when someone's emotional flood threatens to overwhelm us.

Ordinarily, when we see someone pricked with a pin, our brains emit a signal indicating that our own pain centers are echoing that distress. But physicians learn in medical school to block even such automatic responses. Their attentional anesthetic seems to be deployed by the temporal-parietal junction and regions of the prefrontal cortex, a circuit that boosts concentration by tuning out emotions. That's what is happening in your brain when you distance yourself from others in order to stay calm and help them. The same neural network kicks in when we see a problem in an emotionally overheated environment and need to focus on looking for a solution. If you're talking with someone who is upset, this system helps you understand the person's perspective intellectually by shifting from the heart-to-heart of emotional empathy to the head-to-heart of cognitive empathy.

What's more, some lab research suggests that the appropriate application of empathic concern is critical to making moral judgments. Brain scans have revealed that when volunteers listened to tales of people subjected to physical pain, their own brain centers for experiencing such pain lit up instantly. But if the story was about psychological suffering, the higher brain centers involved in empathic concern and compassion took longer to activate. Some time is needed to grasp the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation. The more distracted we are, the less we can cultivate the subtler forms of empathy and compassion.

Building relationships.

People who lack social sensitivity are easy to spot-at least for other people. They are the clueless among us. The CFO who is technically competent but bullies some people, freezes out others, and plays favorites-but when you point out what he has just done, shifts the blame, gets angry, or thinks that you're the problem-is not trying to be a jerk; he's utterly unaware of his shortcomings.

Social sensitivity appears to be related to cognitive empathy. Cognitively empathic executives do better at overseas assignments, for instance, presumably because they quickly pick up implicit norms and learn the unique mental models of a new culture. Attention to social context lets us act with skill no matter what the situation, instinctively follow the universal algorithm for etiquette, and behave in ways that put others at ease. (In another age this might have been called good manners.)

Circuitry that converges on the anterior hippocampus reads social context and leads us intuitively to act differently with, say, our college buddies than with our families or our colleagues. In concert with the deliberative prefrontal cortex, it squelches the impulse to do something inappropriate. Accordingly, one brain test for sensitivity to context assesses the function of the hippocampus. The University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson hypothesizes that people who are most alert to social situations exhibit stronger activity and more connections between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex than those who just can't seem to get it right.

The same circuits may be at play when we map social networks in a group-a skill that lets us navigate the relationships in those networks well. People who excel at organizational influence can not only sense the flow of personal connections but also name the people whose opinions hold most sway, and so focus on persuading those who will persuade others.

Alarmingly, research suggests that as people rise through the ranks and gain power, their ability to perceive and maintain personal connections tends to suffer a sort of psychic attrition. In studying encounters between people of varying status, Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at Berkeley, has found that higher-ranking individuals consistently focus their gaze less on lower-ranking people and are more likely to interrupt or to monopolize the conversation.

In fact, mapping attention to power in an organization gives a clear indication of hierarchy: The longer it takes Person A to respond to Person B, the more relative power Person A has. Map response times across an entire organization, and you'll get a remarkably accurate chart of social standing. The boss leaves e-mails unanswered for hours; those lower down respond within minutes. This is so predictable that an algorithm for it-called automated social hierarchy detection-has been developed at Columbia University. Intelligence agencies reportedly are applying the algorithm to suspected terrorist gangs to piece together chains of influence and identify central figures.

But the real point is this: Where we see ourselves on the social ladder sets the default for how much attention we pay. This should be a warning to top executives, who need to respond to fast-moving competitive situations by tapping the full range of ideas and talents within an organization. Without a deliberate shift in attention, their natural inclination may be to ignore smart ideas from the lower ranks.

Focusing on the Wider World

Leaders with a strong outward focus are not only good listeners but also good questioners. They are visionaries who can sense the far-flung consequences of local decisions and imagine how the choices they make today will play out in the future. They are open to the surprising ways in which seemingly unrelated data can inform their central interests. Melinda Gates offered up a cogent example when she remarked on 60 Minutes that her husband was the kind of person who would read an entire book about fertilizer. Charlie Rose asked, Why fertilizer? The connection was obvious to Bill Gates, who is constantly looking for technological advances that can save lives on a massive scale. "A few billion people would have to die if we hadn't come up with fertilizer," he replied.

Focusing on strategy.

Any business school course on strategy will give you the two main elements: exploitation of your current advantage and exploration for new ones. Brain scans that were performed on 63 seasoned business decision makers as they pursued or switched between exploitative and exploratory strategies revealed the specific circuits involved. Not surprisingly, exploitation requires concentration on the job at hand, whereas exploration demands open awareness to recognize new possibilities. But exploitation is accompanied by activity in the brain's circuitry for anticipation and reward. In other words, it feels good to coast along in a familiar routine. When we switch to exploration, we have to make a deliberate cognitive effort to disengage from that routine in order to roam widely and pursue fresh paths.

What keeps us from making that effort? Sleep deprivation, drinking, stress, and mental overload all interfere with the executive circuitry used to make the cognitive switch. To sustain the outward focus that leads to innovation, we need some uninterrupted time in which to reflect and refresh our focus.

The wellsprings of innovation.

In an era when almost everyone has access to the same information, new value arises from putting ideas together in novel ways and asking smart questions that open up untapped potential. Moments before we have a creative insight, the brain shows a third-of-a-second spike in gamma waves, indicating the synchrony of far-flung brain cells. The more neurons firing in sync, the bigger the spike. Its timing suggests that what's happening is the formation of a new neural network-presumably creating a fresh association.

But it would be making too much of this to see gamma waves as a secret to creativity. A classic model of creativity suggests how the various modes of attention play key roles. First we prepare our minds by gathering a wide variety of pertinent information, and then we alternate between concentrating intently on the problem and letting our minds wander freely. Those activities translate roughly into vigilance, when while immersing ourselves in all kinds of input, we remain alert for anything relevant to the problem at hand; selective attention to the specific creative challenge; and open awareness, in which we allow our minds to associate freely and the solution to emerge spontaneously. (That's why so many fresh ideas come to people in the shower or out for a walk or a run.)

The dubious gift of systems awareness.

If people are given a quick view of a photo of lots of dots and asked to guess how many there are, the strong systems thinkers in the group tend to make the best estimates. This skill shows up in those who are good at designing software, assembly lines, matrix organizations, or interventions to save failing ecosystems-it's a very powerful gift indeed. After all, we live within extremely complex systems. But, suggests the Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (a cousin of Sacha's), in a small but significant number of people, a strong systems awareness is coupled with an empathy deficit-a blind spot for what other people are thinking and feeling and for reading social situations. For that reason, although people with a superior systems understanding are organizational assets, they are not necessarily effective leaders.

An executive at one bank explained to me that it has created a separate career ladder for systems analysts so that they can progress in status and salary on the basis of their systems smarts alone. That way, the bank can consult them as needed while recruiting leaders from a different pool-one containing people with emotional intelligence.

Putting It All Together

For those who don't want to end up similarly compartmentalized, the message is clear. A focused leader is not the person concentrating on the three most important priorities of the year, or the most brilliant systems thinker, or the one most in tune with the corporate culture. Focused leaders can command the full range of their own attention: They are in touch with their inner feelings, they can control their impulses, they are aware of how others see them, they understand what others need from them, they can weed out distractions and also allow their minds to roam widely, free of preconceptions.

By the Same Author

Emotional Intelligence Feature

Your mood can drive (or inhibit) your company's bottom line.

This is challenging. But if great leadership were a paint-by-numbers exercise, great leaders would be more common. Practically every form of focus can be strengthened. What it takes is not talent so much as diligence-a willingness to exercise the attention circuits of the brain just as we exercise our analytic skills and other systems of the body.

The link between attention and excellence remains hidden most of the time. Yet attention is the basis of the most essential of leadership skills-emotional, organizational, and strategic intelligence. And never has it been under greater assault. The constant onslaught of incoming data leads to sloppy shortcuts-triaging our e-mail by reading only the subject lines, skipping many of our voice mails, skimming memos and reports. Not only do our habits of attention make us less effective, but the sheer volume of all those messages leaves us too little time to reflect on what they really mean. This was foreseen more than 40 years ago by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon. Information "consumes the attention of its recipients," he wrote in 1971. "Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention."

My goal here is to place attention center stage so that you can direct it where you need it when you need it. Learn to master your attention, and you will be in command of where you, and your organization, focus.

A version of this article appeared in the December 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Idea in Brief The Problem A primary task of leadership is to direct attention. To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention. The Argument People commonly think of "being focused" as filtering out distractions while concentrating on one thing.

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LESSONS LEARNED: From School Crises and Emergencies

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LESSONS LEARNED: From School Crises and Emergencies

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Leadership strategies from the U.S. Department of Education

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Lessons Learned From School Crises and Emergencies.pdf

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School Walkouts as Civil Disobedience: How Should Districts Respond?

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School Walkouts as Civil Disobedience: How Should Districts Respond?

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An interesting leadership article by Harvard's Graduate School of Education

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The Messy Process of School Counselor Leadership

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The Messy Process of School Counselor Leadership

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The Messy Process of School Counselor Leadership.pdf

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Charismatic vs. Transformational Leadership

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VIDEO: Daniel Goleman on What it Takes to Be a Great Leader

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VIDEO: Daniel Goleman on What it Takes to Be a Great Leader

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Daniel Goleman on What it Takes to Be a Great Leader

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There are four kinds of strengths that you see in the best leaders. Check out on this video.

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Personal Results from the Global Emotional Intelligence Test.

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Personal Results from the Global Emotional Intelligence Test.

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Emotional Intelligence Test - Results.pdf

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Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs To Know

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Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs To Know

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Recent book I read on Leadership

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11 Ways Your School Counselors Serve as Leaders

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11 Ways Your School Counselors Serve as Leaders

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11 Ways Your School Counselors Serve as Leaders.pdf

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VIDEO: Colin Powell: 13 Rules of Leadership

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VIDEO: Colin Powell: 13 Rules of Leadership

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I have a great deal of respect for this man!

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View the entire CUNY TV "Study with the Best" episode at http://www.cuny.tv/show/studywiththebest/PR2001982

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By: Rob Moreau

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Leadership Case Study - Student Walkout.pdf

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VIDEO: Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action.

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VIDEO: Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action.

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This is a great video on leadership.

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Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

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Stakeholder Management and Power Interest Grid Example

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To learn more about Transformational Leadership, see the article at www.mindtools.com/transformationalleadership. Have you ever wondered just what is it about your leadership style that brings out the best in your people? And have you ever thought about the aspects that might need improvement? What are you going to do about it?

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Rob Moreau: Personal Introduction and View on Leadership

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Rob Moreau: Personal Introduction and View on Leadership

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The New Face in Leadership: Emotional Intelligence

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The New Face in Leadership: Emotional Intelligence

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This is a great article that talks about the connection between Emotional Intelligence and Leadership.

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Creating Your Personal Leadership Philosophy

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Creating Your Personal Leadership Philosophy.pdf

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VIDEO & ARTICLE: 5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style

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VIDEO & ARTICLE: 5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style

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A Note From The Editor

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
This article is included in Entrepreneur Voices on Effective Leadership, a new book containing insights from more than 20 contributors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders.
Forget the stereotypical leadership image of a buttoned-up person in a gray suit hauling around a hefty briefcase. Today, standout leaders come in all shapes and sizes. She could be a blue jeans-clad marketing student, running a major ecommerce company out of her dorm room. He might be the next salt-and-pepper-haired, barefoot Steve Jobs, presenting a groundbreaking new device at a major industry conference.

"Our research indicates that what really matters is that leaders are able to create enthusiasm, empower their people, instill confidence and be inspiring to the people around them," says Peter Handal, chief executive of New York City-based Dale Carnegie Training, a leadership-training company.

That's a tall order. However, as different as leaders are today, there are some things great leaders do every day. Here, Handal shares his five keys for effective leadership:

1. Face challenges.
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Great leaders are brave enough to face up to challenging situations and deal with them honestly. Whether it's steering through a business downturn or getting struggling employees back on track, effective leaders meet these challenges openly. Regular communications with your staff, informing them of both good news and how the company is reacting to challenges will go a long way toward making employees feel like you trust them and that they're unlikely to be hit with unpleasant surprises.

"The gossip at the coffee machine is usually 10 times worse than reality," Handal says. "Employees need to see their leaders out there, confronting that reality head-on."

2. Win trust.

Employees are more loyal and enthusiastic when they work in an environment run by people they trust. Building that trust can be done in many ways. The first is to show employees that you care about them, Handal says. Take an interest in your employees beyond the workplace. Don't pry, he advises, but ask about an employee's child's baseball game or college graduation. Let your employees know that you're interested in their success and discuss their career paths with them regularly.

When employees, vendors or others make mistakes, don't reprimand or correct them in anger. Instead, calmly explain the situation and why their behavior or actions weren't correct, as well as what you expect in the future. When people know that you aren't going to berate them and that you have their best interests at heart, they're going to trust you, Handal says.

3. Be authentic.

If you're not a suit, don't try to be one. Employees and others dealing with your company will be able to tell if you're just pretending to be someone you're not, Handal says. That could make them question what else about you might be inauthentic. Have a passion for funky shoes? Wear them. Are you an enthusiastic and hilarious presenter? Get them laughing. Use your strengths and personality traits to develop your personal leadership style, Handal says.

4. Earn respect.

When you conduct yourself in an ethical way and model the traits you want to see in others, you earn the respect of those around you. Leaders who are perceived as not "walking their talk" typically don't get very far, Handal says. This contributes to employees and other stakeholders having pride in the company, which is an essential part of engagement, Handal says. Also, customers are less likely to do business with a company if they don't respect its values or leadership.

5. Stay curious.
For more info, check out Former Cosmo Editor Kate White: How to Be a Badass Leader " Click to Enlarge+ What are your keys to inspiring leadership? Share your thoughts in the comments below. The best submissions will be featured with your name.
Good leaders remain intellectually curious and committed to learning. They're inquisitive and always looking for new ideas, insights and information. Handal says the best leaders understand that innovation and new approaches can come from many places and are always on the lookout for knowledge or people who might inform them and give them an advantage.

"The most successful leaders I know are truly very curious people. They're interested in the things around them and that contributes to their vision," Handal says.

Here are our favorites:

Jun 28, 2013, Right Now Travel Demonstrate a fair and honest character. Make sure your employees are aware that you can show humility and are not afraid to admit fault. Treat everyone the same. Talk to your employees to get to know their life and do not come off as pompous or condescending. Managers are constantly learning. Your workers will respect you more if you respect them.

Jun 28, 2013, The Gem Project, Inc. #LeadershipKeys Great Leadership: 1. Being able to inspire a shared vision or enable a diverse group of individuals to set aside their differences and unite toward a common goal/interest. 2. Transparency: Good leaders are transparent with their actions and lead by example. 3. Leaders that encourage and empower their teams in such a way that makes everyone feel that all they have stake within the organization's future and present. Leaders empower others to act in ways that benefit not just themselves, but their neighbors.

Jun 28, 2013, tammysoffices I found it interesting that many of the keys to good leadership, fall in line with what it takes to be a good parent. All of these characteristics are important to parenting, as well as, important to instill in our children, in my opinion. I also agree many of the other comments. I've often heard it said that 'To be a good leader, be a good follower first', then you know how it feels to be in the other person's shoes. Respecting other's opinions and listening to real concerns and questions -not barking out orders and expecting people to follow, b/c they may for a day, month or so, but eventually they will leave, as they will not respect you, nor feel that you understand their position. Thanks for the article and for making us think about these things.

Jun 27, 2013, Lori King showing by example, not being afraid to get your hands dirty and do the tough jobs, many lead from their thrones, true leaders inspire and show how it's done

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5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. This article is included in Entrepreneur Voices on Effective Leadership , a new book containing insights from more than 20 contributors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. Forget the stereotypical leadership image of a buttoned-up person in a gray suit hauling around a hefty briefcase.

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Today, we were thrilled to dispatch the first edition of our Leadership That Works Newsletter: a curated monthly digest of the very best leadership links from around the web (compiled by the enthusiastic leadership wonks at ConantLeadership). In the event that youare not subscribed to our mailing list but still have an insatiable thirst for leadership knowledge - never fear, we've also compiled the 8 intriguing articles from our newsletter letter right here. Hope you enjoy - and stay curious! (And, if you like what you see, you can sign up for our newsletter right here).

Duncan Coombe, in this Harvard Business Review article, adds to the ever-mounting evidence that the axiom, "it's not personal, it's just business" is really awful career and leadership advice.

This great The Atlantic interview with the author of the book, If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?, reveals enlightening truths about what truly fulfills leaders. It turns out, if you focus on the power, money, and prestige - you don't necessarily get better or happier. But if you find something you love, and focus passionately on mastering it - success, and happiness are more likely to follow.

The way to achieve excellence is through deliberate practice - but it's much more challenging than ordinary practice. How do you keep going, even when practicing with purpose is really hard? This wonderfully practical post from The Quiet Leadership Institute tells you exactly how to master deliberate practice and reach your goals.

This fascinating post from Brain Pickings wholly captures the idea that leadership is a craft - requiring the same attention and creativity as painting or design. Using supporting insights from maker-turned-leader, John Maeda, the article argues, "that human relationships are an act of creativity and craftsmanship, a supreme art . . ." A delightful read.

Mindy Mackenzie, author of The Courage Solution, noticed a crisis in the modern corporate landscape: people weren't telling the truth. Why? "Because people didn't have the courage to tell it. People were afraid of the consequences. So I wrote this book to show them how to tell the truth diplomatically but effectively." In this interview with Skip Prichard, Mackenzie shares empowering tips for truth-telling in your leadership.

"People were nearly two and a half times more likely to take a job that gave them more autonomy than they were to want a job that gave them more influence" writes Melissa Dahl in this interesting post from New York Magazine that should serve as a reminder to leaders: if you want to engage people, trust them to do their jobs.

"We have a choice about where to aim the lens of our attention" writes Seth Godin in this short but effective post on why changing our default approach to challenges is the key to doing better work.

By re-framing the often asked question, "what keeps you up at night?" to "what gets you up in the morning?" - this post in Strategy + Business shows why leaders should be motivated by the excitement of opportunity, as opposed to the dread of failure, if they hope to better engage employees.

Thanks for reading,

Your friends at ConantLeadership

P.S. If you discovered an enlightening, must-read leadership link recently, drop us a line in the comments and share!

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8 Fascinating Leadership Articles to Read Right Now

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Today, we were thrilled to dispatch the first edition of our Leadership That Works Newsletter: a curated monthly digest of the very best leadership links from around the web (compiled by the enthusiastic leadership wonks at ConantLeadership).

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VIDEO: 5 Brilliant TED Talks That Will Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

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VIDEO: 5 Brilliant TED Talks That Will Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional intelligence is more than a hot topic or trending hashtag. The term describes an extremely important concept: a person's ability to recognize his or her own and other people's emotions, to understand the powerful effect of these emotions, and to use that information to guide thinking and behavior. This quality greatly enhances your efforts to achieve success--in many areas of life.

So how do you develop emotional intelligence? As with any skill, you must study and practice. Here are 5 TED Talks that will help you increase self-awareness and start targeting areas for improvement.

1. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

In this open and honest talk, psychologist Kelly McGonigal admits a fundamental change in her thinking regarding stress. She recounts that for years she taught others what sounds like a completely reasonable theory: Stress makes people sick. But then she shares the research that got her thinking differently: Stress may only be bad for you if you believe that it's bad for you.

McGonigal encourages us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to the resulting benefits in doing so. She also teaches us how reaching out to others--either when we're under stress or when they are--helps build resilience.

2. Arianna Huffington: How to succeed? Get more sleep

You know Ms. Huffington as the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, as well as an accomplished author and businesswoman.

In four compelling (and very funny) minutes, Ms. Huffington shares a personal experience that led to a personal discovery. In doing so, she urges us to take a closer look at the benefits of getting enough rest--and gives new meaning to the phrase "sleeping your way to the top".

3. Laura Trice: The power of saying thank you

There are few phrases in the English language that match the power of these two words: thank you.

In a simple (yet profound) three-minute talk, Dr. Laura Trice shares with us the potential of those two words to change relationships, along with the reasons why we don't hear the phrase as often as we should, and why we shouldn't be afraid to ask someone else to say it.

4. Daniel Goleman: Why aren't we more compassionate?

Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and award-winning author who greatly contributed to the popularity of EQ through his 1995 best-selling book Emotional Intelligence.

By brilliantly mixing scientific research and absorbing anecdotes, Goleman delves into the theme question with gusto. In doing so, he inspires us to think about the society we've created, what influences our perspective, and how we can do better. (His concluding story is eye-opening, to say the least.)

5. Mandy Len Catron: Falling in love is the easy part

I almost didn't include this one, but in the end I couldn't resist. It's true, the title might not speak to an audience of entrepreneurs and business owners. But the insights Ms. Catron provide go much further than finding romantic love.

In exploring the differences between falling and staying in love, Ms. Catron teaches important lessons about how we get to know others on a deeper level. Even more importantly, she raises thoughtful questions that each of us would do well to ponder. When we do, we are reminded of what it takes to maintain our most important relationships.

Upon reflection, we realize that developing emotional intelligence may not be easy--but it's definitely worth it.

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5 Brilliant TED Talks That Will Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional intelligence is more than a hot topic or trending hashtag. The term describes an extremely important concept: a person's ability to recognize his or her own and other people's emotions, to understand the powerful effect of these emotions, and to use that information to guide thinking and behavior.

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Harvard Business Review

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Have you ever been in a group where someone took control of the situation by conveying a clear vision of the group's goals, a marked passion for the work, and an ability to make the rest of the group feel recharged and energized? This person just might be what is called a transformational leader.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that can inspire positive changes in those who follow. Transformational leaders are generally energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Not only are these leaders concerned and involved in the process; they are also focused on helping every member of the group succeed as well.

Quick Background

The concept of transformational leadership was initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when "leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of moral and motivation."﻿﻿

Later, researcher Bernard M. Bass expanded upon Burns's original ideas to develop what is today referred to as Bass's Transformational Leadership Theory. According to Bass, transformational leadership can be defined based on the impact that it has on followers. Transformational leaders, Bass suggested, garner trust, respect, and admiration from their followers.﻿﻿

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Components

Bass also suggested that there were four different components of transformational leadership.

1. Intellectual Stimulation: Transformational leaders not only challenge the status quo; they also encourage creativity among followers. The leader encourages followers to explore new ways of doing things and new opportunities to learn.

2. Individualized Consideration: Transformational leadership also involves offering support and encouragement to individual followers. In order to foster supportive relationships, transformational leaders keep lines of communication open so that followers feel free to share ideas and so that leaders can offer direct recognition of the unique contributions of each follower.

3. Inspirational Motivation: Transformational leaders have a clear vision that they are able to articulate to followers. These leaders are also able to help followers experience the same passion and motivation to fulfill these goals.

4. Idealized Influence: The transformational leader serve as a role model for followers. Because followers trust and respect the leader, they emulate this individual and internalize his or her ideals.

So what are some typical signs of a transformational leader? Groups led by this type of leader tend to be both successful and loyal. They give a lot to the team and care deeply about the group's ability to accomplish its goals. Turnover tends to be quite low as transformational leaders are able to inspire a great deal of commitment in their followers.

In their classic text, Transformational Leadership, authors Bass and Riggio explained:

"Transformational leaders...are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders help followers grow and develop into leaders by responding to individual followers' needs by empowering them and by aligning the objectives and goals of the individual followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization."

"Research evidence clearly shows that groups led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and satisfaction than groups led by other types of leaders," explained psychologist and leadership expert Ronald E. Riggio in an article for Psychology Today.

The reason, he suggests, is that transformational leaders believe that their followers can do their best, leading members of the group to feel inspired and empowered.

What can you do to become a more transformational leader? Leadership experts suggest that having a strong, positive vision of the future plays a critical role. Not only is it important to believe in this vision yourself; you've also got to inspire others to buy into your vision as well.

Link to Well-Being

According to the results of one study, this style of leadership can also have a positive influence on employee well-being.﻿﻿

The study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine involved surveying workers at several different German information and communication technology companies. Researchers asked participants to answers questions about their employer's leadership style.

A score for transformational leadership was then determined based on qualities such as providing intellectual stimulation, giving positive feedback for good performance, leading by example, and helping employees feel like they were making a contribution toward the goals of the group.

The researchers discovered that employees who identified a higher level of transformational leadership in their employers also had higher reported levels of well-being. The effect stayed significant even after researchers controlled for factors that are linked to well-being such as job strain, education, and age.

"The results of this study suggest that a transformational leadership style, which both conveys a sense of trust and meaningfulness and individually challenges and develops employees, also has a positive effect on employee well-being," the authors summarized.

Real-World Applications

So what impact could such results have for managers and workers?

The study's authors suggest that the results are important and can help companies develop leadership training programs that can be used to teach transformational leadership skills. Acquiring communication skills such as resolving conflicts in the workplace and recognizing the needs of employees are an important part of transformational leadership.

"Such training programs can be seen as another essential component of workplace health promotion and prevention efforts and therefore should receive wide support," explained the study's authors.

A Word From Verywell

The transformational style of leadership can be highly effective when used appropriately, but it might not necessarily be the best choice for every situation. In some cases, groups may require a more managerial or autocratic style that involves closer control and greater direction, particularly in situations where group member are unskilled and need a lot of oversight.

One way to improve your own leadership skills is to assess your own current leadership style and think about ways in which your strengths can benefit the group you are leading. By evaluating your own skills, you will be better able to play to your strengths and work on improving your areas of weakness.

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How Do Transformational Leaders Inspire and Motivate Followers?

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Have you ever been in a group where someone took control of the situation by conveying a clear vision of the group's goals, a marked passion for the work, and an ability to make the rest of the group feel recharged and energized? This person just might be what is called a transformational leader.