Truly Great Leaders expect maximum productivity from everyone!

In High Performance Teams absenteeism is very low, productivity is high, and people are busy doing what they should be doing to contribute - they are entirely relaxed about the leader and see him or her as part of the team, rather than the Commander.

Dictatorial leadership, or assuming the role of the Commander, usually leads to development of a blame culture.

A blame culture is where your team is so busy engaged in guerilla tactics to survive, that they do not perform anywhere near their capacity.

The organization still runs, but often key members spend more than 60% of their time on protection tasks such as internal presentations; being seen at the right meetings, places and events; worrying about what they think you want; running to your desk; sitting at their desk even when they should be out with customers, because they think you may seek them; and not surprisingly looking for another job, or having more than 2-3 absentee days per year for thin reason.

When there is a problem in this type of culture, then the team members spend more time working out who to blame (probably before they even attempt to find a solution) than finding a way to solve the ...

Ever wondered why some companies, large or small can deliver consistent growth and positive, forecast results in good times and bad? So many companies ride the roller coaster of economic vagaries, and the published results are like a camouflaged list of excuses, especially when the economy is slow or there is an event in a geography.

I recently saw a distributor use the excuse of a natural disaster, in one of their geographic markets, to explain their poor results. The truth was, if you looked carefully into their results this area showed growth! Why? Because every store had to replace the goods that were damaged, so this in effect created a one off growth peak! This was just an easy, high profile excuse to use. They were aware that few shareholders actually spend time on the detail.

My research shows, and history will ratify this, that those companies that can perform consistently with open, transparent results are all spearheaded by excellent leadership. The CEO’s, Owners and Management layer are strong leaders, with the ability to bring their people together in a supportive, holistic way. They receive honest, open feedback and forecasts from their managers. As a consequence, they are able to forsee potential negative ...

Transformational Leadership is a style of leading people in an inspirational way rather than driven by transactional numbers alone.

Considerable research has been done into the concept of Transformational Leadership, particularly since first introduced to a wider audience, by James MacGregor Burns in 1978.

However, whilst much of this research focuses on leadership concepts in the political arena and in organizational psychology, there is conclusive and consistent evidence to prove that Transformational Leadership does create significant positive change in an organization. In addition, the resultant redesign of organizational culture creates an environment where the followers give more than either they, or the organization, likely anticipated.

Transformational Leadership maximizes the human potential within any organization, thereby lowering headcount and cost, increasing ROI and improving retention rates of high performing employees and leaders. There is no doubt that there is also a personal benefit to any CxO level executive, in that results are more predictable, surprises are less and the result will be increased personal income, and security of tenure, through achievement of goals.

Some of the more recent ...