John Mattone

Keynote Speaker on Leadership, Talent & Culture: John Mattone

Why Success Depends on Embracing Disruptive Leadership

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The term “disruption” has become a staple of discussion surrounding twenty-first-century economics.

The current industrial revolution requires that we change how we think about even the most entrenched business processes.

The internet has changed nearly everything about how business is transacted – including in the most non-technical businesses.

As we experience the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where the physical and the digital worlds converge, new ways of doing business are replacing old ways. When I spoke to the World Business Forum in Sydney, Australia in 2016, I said that success today is in direct proportion to our ability to embrace disruptive thinking, and I believe that just as strongly today. Here is a clip from that event:

Why Does Disruptive Leadership Matter So Much Today?

Disruptive leadership isn’t just important today, it is indispensable. We don’t buy books the way we did 20 years ago, we don’t manage bank accounts like we used to, and we’ve even changed how we get around cities and how we diagnose diseases. Since we don’t do things the way we used to, we can’t lead the way we used to.

Even in middle management, where incrementalism and risk management have traditionally been rewarded, leaders must embrace disruption, because many traditional processes are inadequate to the demands of the future. Leaders who take risks and that reward disruptive innovation are the ones that will create the most value in our increasingly digital future.

How Do Leaders Embrace Disruption?

Leaders embrace disruption by ensuring that all fundamental business processes happen while at the same time demonstrating that they value disruption. Suppliers still have to be paid, and employees still need to be able to do things like schedule vacation time. All these basic business processes still have to take place. But at the same time, businesses must be open to changing how those things are done, taking advantage of technology and understanding how attitudes and markets are constantly evolving.

Businesses must not be afraid to employ people who are capable and willing to disrupt things, and this may require significant changes to the corporate culture. Leaders must model behaviors like commitment to continuous learning, willingness to change, looking for answers and talent in unexpected places, and learning to replace “No.” with “How?” And they must expect those behaviors in others.

Asking how instead of immediately saying no is one way to embrace disruption.

Why Leadership Coaching Helps Leaders Embrace Disruption

Leaders who don’t embrace disruption will ultimately find themselves left behind. By contrast, leaders who break barriers, liberate talent, model disruptive behavior, and reward innovation will move both themselves and their organizations ahead.

Leadership coaching can be a tremendously valuable investment for leaders who are reluctant to embrace disruption. Learning to recognize limiting behaviors and change them is a key component in many leadership coaching relationships. Knowing that you should do something can be a far cry from actually doing it, and leadership coaching is about practicing key skills until they become encoded into everyday life. Embracing disruption is a skill like any other in that it requires learning how, and then practicing it until it becomes integral to day-to-day operation.

Disruption Is Here to Stay

Disruption isn’t going away. There are too many people throughout the world who think, “Why do we do things this way when technology allows us to approach it from an entirely new and better direction?” Without disruption we wouldn’t have Amazon, the iPhone, LED lighting, Skype, or countless other technologies we use every day.

When leadership embraces disruption, short-term gains may be sacrificed for long-term success, and yes, egos may be bruised. But the world simply won’t wait around while old and inefficient methods of doing business proceed at their frustrating pace. Leaders who embrace disruption recognize this and even celebrate it, because they know their future depends on it. If you would like to learn more about disruptive leadership and the changes that go along with it, I invite you to learn more about my corporate culture transformation advisory services.

Leadership and Cultural Transformation Begin from Within

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Strong leadership is necessary for cultural transformation.

Cultures may evolve or stagnate, and leadership is a prime determinant of how they do so.

Culture in the workplace can become stagnant, and when it does, any cultural evolution that happens will tend toward calcifying the processes and outlooks that are already in place. There’s nothing wrong with stability, but when stability turns into stagnation, an organization can’t grow and thrive as it should. And without strong leadership, culture can’t change in positive ways.

While it’s possible to learn leadership techniques, having the insight and courage to apply them in pursuit of positive cultural change must come from within. It’s not always easy, but practicing setting and achieving goals can prepare you for times when you have to make important (and sometimes difficult) leadership decisions.

What It Takes to Achieve Your Goals

Many elements go into successfully achieving your goals. Not only must you have goals, you must also have the motivation and self-confidence to pursue them. You must think big while being realistic, and you must be disciplined enough to monitor your progress. Being able to foresee possible obstacles can help you prepare for when things go off-track, as can having the discipline to resist temptation to stray from your goals.

I have identified 21 laws of leadership and cultural transformation that I believe can help you as you develop your own leadership skills and strive toward goals for yourself and for your organization. You can download the document for free here. Here are the first three of those laws of leadership and cultural transformation and why they work.

1. Align with People of Extraordinary Character and Competence

We are shaped by the company we keep. And while we can’t always choose who we work with, we may have more control over who we spend our time with than we think. Aligning with positive people who are competent and of strong character is easier when we take these steps:

  • Be genuine and true to yourself
  • Find common ground, such as positive traits you’re attracted to
  • Leave your comfort zone sometimes: experience new things and meet new people
  • Consistently work on your own character and competence
  • Counteract complainers with positivity that’s genuine (even if it is over something small)

Seek out and demonstrate positivity and strength of character.

2. Disciplined Pursuit of Less Can Deliver More

You simply cannot be all things to all people. Your role as a leader may have grown more complicated over the years as you assume more and more responsibilities. Eventually, you may wonder what your real function is! Learning how to delegate and empower team members can help you offload some of the non-critical responsibilities that weigh you down. When you can identify and focus on the activities that only you can do, that add value, you can deliver more while pursuing less. It’s not easy, but leadership coaching can help tremendously with key executive skills like delegation and team empowerment.

3. Know You Are Good; Admit You Can Be Better

It may seem paradoxical that you have to both accept yourself and change yourself, but it’s not really an either/or situation. The concept of radical acceptance embraces both acceptance and change. Experiencing your life as it requires letting go of illusions of control, which opens us up to change. Knowing you are good but admitting you can improve requires three key steps:

  • Recognizing reality: this is what is happening
  • Accepting reality: right now, it’s not like I envisioned it
  • Moving forward: I can take what reality gives me and do my absolute best with it

In other words, you can move forward and make positive changes without giving up who you are at your core.

I encourage you to download “The 21 Laws of Leadership & Cultural Transformation” to learn about the other 18 laws. And I also invite you to learn more about my executive coaching services. We all have transformative power within, and it is the leaders that learn to work with this power in positive ways that change the world.

What Makes A Good Motivational Speaker?

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Can you remember an event you attended where you were completely blown away by the presenter or guest speaker? Perhaps it was a commencement address for college graduation or a conference where a passionate professional spoke of their trials and tribulations. Do you recall the passion in their voices? The excitement in their gestures? Good motivational speakers have the unique ability to inspire an entire room. Motivational keynote speakers can truly deliver thought-provoking and emotional speeches that give listeners the strength they need to reach their goals once walk out the doors. While it’s essential to have a knack for public speaking, it takes more than eloquent speech to make a motivational speaker successful. It takes much effort and practice to refine the methods of motivational speaking. So, how do they do it? How do motivational speakers lift us up and inspire us to do more?

Important Qualities of Motivational Speakers

A good and well practiced motivational speaker not only can paint a picture with their storytelling but teach a lesson and motivate individuals in a way that can relate to certain aspects of the audience’s life. Most importantly, a seasoned motivational speaker can read the room and speak to the audience’s needs rather than their own. Let’s dive into a few more important qualities that make up a successful motivational speaker.

  • Passion: In order to be a successful motivational speaker for events, it’s essential that one has a passion for what they do and what they speak about. Having a passion for what they do will only help them thrive as a motivational speaker. Most importantly, a motivational speaker who exudes passion in their work is someone who inspires others. An audience can pick up on a speaker’s passion for what they are doing and, in turn, have more respect for them and their work.
  • Dynamic: With time and circumstance, the needs of individuals change all the time. Any successful motivational speaker for events will know how to navigate these circumstances to ensure that their speech is always relevant to the audience. To truly impart wisdom and inspiration on your audience, motivational speakers must display dynamic qualities. To be dynamic, a motivational speaker must always remain up to date on the latest trends in their area of expertise.
  • Confidence: Confidence is key when it comes to motivational speaking. If you want your audience to be enthralled with what you are trying to impart on them, it’s essential that you have confidence in yourself.
  • A Strong Speaking Voice: Most of the time, motivational speakers will present in front of very large audiences. Therefore, it’s essential to have a strong and robust voice that will carry across the room. A seasoned motivational speaker for events has a voice that boasts influence and authority–keeping their audience focused throughout the entire presentation. Not only must a motivational speaker have a strong speaking voice, but they must speak with clarity, conciseness, and with perfect annunciation.
  • Empathy: Having empathy for your work and your audience is another essential quality for a motivational speaker to have. Being able to empathize with others will allow speakers to expand new depths in their work and relate to their audiences on another level. Great motivational speakers will us empathy to put themselves in their audience’s shoes to get a better understanding of how they feel. Empathy will give speakers the opportunity to deliver speeches that empowers everyone in the room.
  • Sense of Humor: Everyone likes someone with an appropriate sense of humor. Adding humor to your speeches is one of the best ways to keep your audience enthralled. Adding jokes or fun anecdotes into your speech is a wonderful way to keep your speech fun and light-hearted in certain sections.

While these are only a few examples, there are many important qualities that make up a great motivational speaker. Motivational speakers are truly charismatic while their speeches hold great substance. These individuals have the unique ability to deliver powerful messages and inspire those that listen to what they have to say. With these qualities, motivational speakers can lead their audience through a range of emotions while coming towards clarity and inspiration.

Why John Mattone Is a Leading Motivational Speaker

As one of the top executive coaches in the country and the #1 authority on Intelligent Leadership, John Mattone has spoken at some of the world’s most distinguished and reputable conferences around the world. On average, John Mattone specialized with global organizations that represent any industry and sector in the corporate world. In each speech that he gives, John Mattone accomplishes the following:

  • The transformation and renewal of their organization.
  • The remodeling of their corporate culture to better support their business needs.
  • The strengthening of leadership skills and mindsets
  • The building of excellent leadership to support business goals.

With over 30 years of experience, John Mattone exudes passion and authenticity in each and every one of the speeches he delivers around the world. From the moment he walks out on the stage, John Mattone starts out his motivational speeches with bang and end with his audience in awe of what they just experienced.

If you’re looking for a motivational speaker for your next corporate event, you’ll want to consider John Mattone for the job. As one of the best motivational speakers in the world, John Mattone always revolves his speeches around relatable content that will reach out and grab the audience’s attention from the start. Most importantly, John Mattone isn’t afraid to speak openly and honestly about his successes and his failures on his journey to becoming the man he is today. John Mattone has the humility to share lessons through his own mistakes and his own accomplishments, allowing the audience to truly relate to the purpose of his speech–also showing them that they too can accomplish what they may think is the impossible. John Mattone’s speeches are relatable, motivating, and easily inspire each and every person who attends. For your next corporate presentation, it’s advisable to consider John Mattone as your keynote motivational speaker.

Why Leadership Must Empower Team Members and How to Do It

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Empowering people is not necessarily the same thing as delegating to them.

Delegation does not equal empowerment.

You can delegate tasks to people while still taking away all the decision-making involved in those tasks. Empowerment not only trusts someone to carry out a task or process, it also trusts them to make decisions as well.

For example, if you delegate the task of delivering a file to someone at a certain time and place, there’s no decision-making, just legwork. Empowering team members means you not only trust them to do the legwork but also to make decisions along the way. Outcomes between simple delegates and empowered persons can be vastly different.

Empowerment, Self-Efficacy, and Psychological Ownership

A 2017 study by researchers at Central Michigan University found that “empowering leadership was positively related to both self-efficacy and psychological ownership, which in turn were both negatively related to deviant behaviors.” In other words, people empowered by their leaders took responsibility for and accomplished tasks, and they were less likely to do bad things.

Psychological ownership of responsibility is something you can’t really expect from those you delegate to. But it goes along fittingly with empowerment. When someone has “ownership” of responsibility, they feel a stronger obligation to get results, even if they have to do things differently than expected in order to get them. They’re willing to do this because they believe their leader has their back.

Trust, Responsibility Foundational to Empowerment

If the concepts of trust and responsibility are not deeply embedded in team attitudes, empowerment is hard to accomplish. A team member who does not feel that their leader trusts them with all aspects of their allotted tasks is unlikely to do anything beyond what is strictly required, and why should they? If they’re going to take responsibility, they need to know their leader fully trusts their judgment and skills.

Responsibility must also be connected in every team member’s mind to the accomplishment of overall team goals. People need to know their work isn’t done in isolation, but is essential to bigger accomplishments, and that team members can rely on everyone to do their part to the best of their ability. Empowerment assumes more risk than delegation, but it leads to better engagement in tasks, higher morale, and greater pride in doing things well.

Pride in work well done is a huge benefit of empowerment.

Steps to Empowering Team Members

Delegation is not a bad thing. In fact, it is often the first step to empowerment. When a delegated task is done well, you can allow greater leeway with each subsequent delegation, until you and the team member have a strong sense of what they are capable of, and how much responsibility they are willing and able to assume. Other steps to an empowered team include:

  • Setting clear expectations
  • Ensuring all team members have the resources they need
  • Giving constructive feedback
  • Listening to ideas for doing things differently
  • Recognizing team members for exceptional work

These steps must take place in team relationships bonded by trust and a sense of shared responsibility.

Empowering team members leads to teams that are more creative and helpful. It cultivates greater engagement in tasks, and makes work a better place to be. The strongest corporate cultures are built on principles of trust and responsibility, and those concepts are repeatedly highlighted with every action of the empowered team.

Empowering teams does not necessarily come easily to many leaders. They want things done right, and they don’t want team members’ actions to reflect poorly upon other team members or themselves. Many leadership development programs cover empowerment, and it’s critical for every leader to know that it isn’t just another buzzword.

Leadership coaching can assist leaders with important concepts like team empowerment, helping them understand what it is, what it isn’t, and specific steps to take to build empowerment into their team. One reason leadership coaching is so effective is that it goes beyond helping leaders learn how to empower their teams, encouraging them to put their empowerment skills into action repeatedly, until they become natural.

Done well and consistently, empowerment results in better attainment of individual goals, team goals, leadership goals, and company goals. If you would like to explore the concept of empowerment of teams by leaders, I encourage you to learn more about my executive coaching services.

High Expectations vs. Unrealistic Expectations: Leadership’s Fine Line

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Strong leaders have high expectations for themselves and others.

For the most part, high expectations are good for business.

It is only the weak leaders who expect little from their teams, and inevitably, they get little from their teams as a result. This phenomenon is often known as “the Golem effect.”

The Golem effect has been demonstrated countless times in classrooms, and it makes sense. If teachers think students are dull or incompetent, the students are generally not going to expend effort trying to prove their teachers wrong.

The so-called Pygmalion effect is named after Pygmalion, sculptor of Greek mythology who fell in love with a statue he created. It’s essentially the opposite of the Golem effect. The Pygmalion effect has also been demonstrated in classrooms: when teachers expect good performance from students, student performance tends to rise to the challenge.

You’ll see both these phenomena in the workplace as well. Hence, it’s good to have high expectations from employees, because they will tend to go on to fulfill those expectations. There is, however, a limit. Once high expectations cross the line into unrealistic expectations, consequences can be disastrous.

The Ultimate Response to a Leader’s Unrealistic Expectations

When expectations repeatedly rise to where employees can never reach them, employees will eventually figure, “Why bother?” After all, if putting in huge amounts of effort gets the same result (disappointment from their leader) as putting in minimal effort, why would anyone continue to push themselves? Once high standards become unrealistic standards, they become weapons, and results include:

  • Low morale
  • A “why bother” attitude
  • Loss of respect for leadership
  • High staff turnover

In the short term, the effects of unrealistic expectations can include higher absenteeism, cost overruns, poor quality work, and missed delivery dates. Leaders must be able to recognize when their high expectations become unrealistic expectations.

High staff turnover is one consequence of relentless, unrealistic expectations.

How to Set High Standards without Being Unrealistic

Strong communication is the key to keeping expectations high as well as attainable. The best way to find out if you set unrealistic expectations is to ask team members if they think your goals for them are obtainable, or if they sometimes feel like you’re setting them up for failure.

Clearly define deadlines, but avoid adding requirements without considering whether deadlines should be adjusted. Again, it’s appropriate to ask team members how long they think a task will take, or what they need in terms of resources to fulfill added requirements or meet tighter deadlines.

To be able to do this, you must first have strong trust and good communication with your team members. Team members will naturally be skeptical of an “invisible” boss who suddenly asks their opinion about project goals. If you’re not communicating well enough to establish and sustain trust, then leadership coaching can help you turn things around.

Standards and Expectations Are Contagious

Standards and expectations are contagious, in that when people see someone set and achieve high standards for themselves, they tend to want to imitate the behavior. That’s one reason why it’s so important that leaders set high standards for themselves and work hard to meet them. But there can be too much of a good thing. Continually striving to be better is good, but making standards impossible to reach without more resources, more time, or more people can seriously set a business back.

Leadership coaching is all about helping leaders continue to develop their strengths while recognizing and learning how to address their shortcomings. And if one of those shortcomings is being so enthralled by high expectations that those expectations become unobtainable, leadership coaching can help.

It’s not easy to look at one’s own performance and recognize that it plays a role in poor team performance, but it is necessary in order to turn things around. If you would like to explore the topic of leadership, expectations, and performance in greater depth, I invite you to learn more about my executive coaching services.

Why Leaders Must Demonstrate Clarity of Purpose

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In business, you’ll find plenty of people (including leaders) who are perfectly content with the status quo.

The status quo may be comfortable, but the world won’t stop innovating just because you do.

And you’ll find many more people who focus on improving efficiency, striving to do exactly what they’ve always done, only faster.

There’s nothing wrong with improving efficiency – in fact, it’s good to regularly assess process efficiencies and improve them where you can – but there’s a limit to what efficiency improvement can do.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, you could have put all your energies into developing a better suspension for a horse-drawn carriage, but you couldn’t ignore the rise of the bicycle and soon after, the automobile. In other words, efficiency improvements are generally good, but sometimes innovation becomes necessary. Leaders who demonstrate clarity of purpose facilitate innovation better. Here’s how.

Answer “Why Are We Here?” Before Asking, “How Can We Do It Better?”

Before you can innovate, you need to ask and answer the question: “Why are we here?” For example, if you operate a hairstyling salon, the answer may be, “We’re here to help people look better and be more confident.” Can you answer the question of why your business exists in plain, simple language?

Because only when you know your purpose can you discover ways to do it better, whether that’s by improving efficiencies, or by creating a disruptive innovation. Innovations can come from any aspect of your business, from how you communicate with suppliers to your procedure for choosing contractors to how you market your business.

What Does a Strong Sense of Purpose Accomplish?

A strong sense of purpose in a leader doesn’t mean there’s no debate or discussion surrounding progress and options. It does mean that when an innovative course of action is chosen, everyone is likelier to get on board and work toward common goals. It can’t happen if there is confusion about purpose, and it’s up to leaders to clarify and articulate purpose for team members.

Clarity of purpose helps create a culture of innovation at all organizational levels. It helps people generate and develop ideas that have a meaningful impact. Clarity of purpose can also facilitate external collaboration, whether with technology partners, suppliers, or customers. More importantly, leadership with clarity of purpose helps employees think differently and act differently, helping the organization understand when it’s time to break out of the status quo.

Purpose-driven, innovative culture can transform relationships with suppliers and contractors too.

How to Facilitate a Purpose-Driven Culture

Naturally, strong leadership is necessary for a purpose-driven organization, and leadership development programs and leadership coaching help develop this strong leadership.

Innovative, purpose-driven leaders allow team members appropriate levels of autonomy and flexibility in their work. When team members feel like little more than cogs in a machine, what reason do they have to go above and beyond? But when they are trusted with autonomy to do what they do and develop better ways of doing it (whether through process improvements or innovations), they’re likelier to treat their job as a means of pursuing excellence.

And creating a purpose-driven culture means communicating key values at every stage of employment, starting with the employee recruiting process. Employees that are strongly connected to a sense of purpose at work are likelier to stay around, so it’s important to communicate purpose and the value of purpose-driven work even at the earliest stages of employee recruitment.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, leaders must themselves understand the importance of purpose. They must understand the company’s purpose and be able to articulate it in many different settings and situations. Leadership development programs must be undergirded with a strong sense of purpose, and in some cases, leadership coaching must help leaders develop a strong sense of purpose.

Knowing why you do what you do is the first step in finding ways to do it better. In some cases, “doing it better” leads to innovation and even disruption. Change wrought by innovation can be disconcerting at times, but the alternative – stagnation – is far worse over the long term. I encourage you to check out my books, particularly Cultural Transformations: Lessons of Leadership and Corporate Reinvention, which covers corporate culture development and how to meet the many leadership challenges it involves.

How Great Leaders Balance Autonomy and Accountability

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Companies don’t succeed when the goals of individuals are out of alignment with the goals of the organization.

Unless individuals are on the same path as the organization, progress can’t happen.

Goal misalignment may be evident between different layers of management and employees, or it may be evident amongst individuals within a department or at a particular level of leadership. Everyone doesn’t have to agree on everything, such as precisely how to meet goals, but everyone must understand what the organization is working toward in order to make progress in the right direction.

Additionally, autonomy and accountability must be in balance in order for progress to go at the right pace. Too much of either can lead to problems and knock personal and organizational goals out of alignment.

Autonomy and Accountability: Lack of Balance Throws Off Alignment

When the wheels on your car are out of alignment, it’s harder to handle. And when you continue driving a car with misaligned wheels, eventually you’ll get uneven wear on the tires and put excessive stress on the suspension, while continually increasing the risk of a crash due to poor handling.

Likewise, when autonomy and accountability go out of balance, it’s easier for personal goals to go out of alignment with organizational goals, and over time, the two can diverge to the point where major backtracking and correction are necessary. Autonomy is good. Accountability is good also. But the two must be well-balanced so that people have both the flexibility to do their job well and innovatively while continuing to help the organization move toward its fundamental goals.

Autonomy without Accountability Can Lead to Disaster

Today’s businesses must be innovative or risk losing their competitive advantage. Autonomy helps set the conditions for innovation because it allows employees flexibility for finding new and better ways to do things. Unchecked autonomy, however, can lead to inefficiencies, poor budget management, confusion, and chaos. And face it: some people will be content to cruise along under the radar, unchecked by accountability.

Without accountability, some people will do whatever they can get away with.

Leadership doesn’t disappear when people have autonomy, but its role shifts a bit. Rigid work assignments and oversight give way to more individualized attention, honest feedback, and coaching. Even so, asking business questions like, “How are costs for this project tracking?” or “Are we on schedule to meet this milestone?” are as valid as ever, and shouldn’t be avoided.

Accountability without Autonomy Leads to Stagnation

When accountability always overrides autonomy, there’s little incentive to innovate. Many of us have been in the position of taking a job with great enthusiasm, only to watch that enthusiasm gradually smothered under layer upon layer of accountability. Eventually, accountability itself becomes the goal, and innovation dies out.

Leadership Is a Balancing Act

Great leaders learn to balance autonomy and accountability, and to maintain that balance during challenging times. Many leadership coaches work with clients who struggle to balance autonomy and accountability. Maybe they worry that if they don’t give team members full autonomy they won’t be liked, or perhaps they are so concerned with meeting metrics and having proof of it that they don’t allow any autonomy.

Leadership coaching involves a keen understanding of both the client and the organization. What are the organizational goals, what are the individual’s goals, and how can they align properly? This is a prerequisite to learning how to balance autonomy and accountability, and it’s hard to learn how to do it without commitment and practice. That’s what leadership coaching is all about. Ultimately, the goal is to give people the right amount of autonomy to innovate and be productive, while maintaining a level of accountability that ensures good business results.

Leadership coaches assist their clients with empowering their teams to find the best solutions, learning when to give away control, and how to implement the checks and balances that work as “guardrails” keeping innovation on the right track. It’s not an easy thing to learn on one’s own, and that’s one reason why leadership coaches are in high demand. If you would like to learn more,  I invite you to explore my executive coaching services.

How Executive Coaching Can Help Leaders Handle Crises Better

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You can’t be prepared for every crisis when you’re an executive, but you can take steps in advance to mitigate their effects. And you must always bear in mind the importance of your actions as a leader during times of crisis.

You can’t predict crises, but you can prepare for them in certain fundamental ways.

In some industries, like the petroleum industry, you can closely monitor the market and geopolitical trends to learn when circumstances make a crisis more likely. But in every industry, having a strong, well-considered leadership succession plan is an excellent preparatory step against not only crises, but ordinary events that occur over time, like retirements, deaths, and executives moving on to other opportunities.

Many of the skills that executives must demonstrate during crises are the same skills that executive coaching frequently addresses. Communication, decision-making, and delegation are just three examples. Here are some of the ways accomplished leaders are able to handle crises with greater assurance and help their organizations come through them successfully.

By Being Aware That Normal Decision-Making Processes May Break Down in Crisis

Have you noticed how, in some crises, designated leaders do what they do, but other, unexpected leaders emerge and do their part to control the crisis? In 2011, a tornado destroyed the town of Monson, Massachusetts, and local and federal disaster responders played their appointed roles. However, two sisters, Caitria and Morgan O’Neill took it upon themselves to set up a command center in a local church, coordinating residents and volunteers. Seemingly from nowhere, the two emerged as leaders and helped with recovery.

The “command and control” decision-making paradigms that may work ordinary times may not work at all in a crisis situation. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon executives to develop agility, encouraging quick feedback loops, adjusting as the situation unfolds, and learning quickly from mistakes before moving on.

By Demonstrating These Skills 

First and foremost, leaders must recognize they’re in a crisis, moving past denial and coping quickly with the shock that crises bring. Additionally, they must be willing to do the following:

  • Ask for outside help where indicated
  • Observe behavior before interpreting and acting on it
  • Draw upon internal reserves of courage
  • Reiterate their purpose to themselves and others working on the crisis
  • Surround themselves with the right people, rather than “yes men”

Communication is never more important than during times of crisis.

Finally, it is absolutely imperative that leaders communicate regularly and effectively in times of crisis. Under normal working conditions, most people adopt a “no news is good news” attitude, and that’s fine most of the time. In crisis, however, that is turned on its head. In crisis, no news is bad news, and leaders must be prepared and willing to communicate honestly and regularly with everyone affected by the crisis.

Being Willing to “Own” Failure

Second, only to the human heartbreak that some crises bring, the hardest thing for many executives to cope with is ownership of their own failures during the crisis. Deflecting or obfuscating may temporarily lessen the pain, but only temporarily.

We live in a world where news is easier to discover and transmit than ever before in history. In other words, when you make a huge blunder as an executive, people will find out about it. The only way forward is owning and acknowledging mistakes, apologizing, and continuing to address the crisis in responsible and constructive ways.

By Learning from Crisis

Leadership demands that we take away important lessons from every crisis. How can we be prepared for the next crisis if we learn nothing from the one we have just endured? It’s easier to learn those key lessons as executives if we act with authenticity, accountability, and transparency during times of crisis. Furthermore, acting authentically, accountably, and transparently inspires others on all levels to do the same.

Executive coaches regularly work with clients on the skills that tend to show most obviously during crises. Decision-making, communication, owning mistakes, and delegating responsibly are skills that executives regularly focus upon in their coaching sessions. And even if executives never face a major crisis as a leader, those skills have been and will be key to outstanding leadership. If you would like to explore executive leadership coaching further, I invite you to  learn more about my leadership coaching services. 

How Outstanding Leadership Promotes Innovation

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In mature businesses, the primary success metric is profit, not innovation.

Once a profitable operation is established, it’s all too easy to forget about innovation.

Often, when a business reaches maturity, its organizational structures evolve to guide the company to more efficient operation, and this shift tends to steer employees away from pursuing innovation and discovery. When employees are taught to seek efficiencies based on existing assets and processes, the drive to innovate tends to fall by the wayside. It’s good for the short-term reports to shareholders, but can be problematic over the long term.

What’s more, leadership development programs may not address innovation at all. As a result, the drive to innovate can be dead and buried by the time an employee reaches a position of leadership. Yet innovation is everywhere in the world, and it’s what propels people and businesses forward. How can leaders encourage innovation and help create a culture in which innovation is prized?

Executive Buy-In Mandatory for a Culture That Promotes Innovation

Executives can’t just say they’re “for” innovation. If their actions don’t back that up, if they are in the habit of shooting down innovative ideas before they can be developed, frontline employees get the message loud and clear: there’s no real support for innovation, so why bother?

Leaders must not only say they are in favor of innovation, they must also take steps that back up that sentiment. They must set aside resources for use on innovation, and they must accept occasional failure as part of the process. Most of all, they must listen to employees and partners, dig deeper, and genuinely consider the innovative ideas people come up with.

Necessary Conditions for Innovation to Thrive

Overall company culture can be a determining factor in whether or not innovation thrives. If everyone is afraid of stepping out of line or if executive egos won’t bear the self-examination that results when a junior employee comes up with a terrific innovation, then innovation won’t happen. The company may adopt innovations that other companies have developed, but that’s not the same thing.

This is what employees see when they work in a culture that doesn’t value innovation.

Companies that say they reward innovation should do exactly that. They should actively solicit ideas, encourage development of the best of them, and reward innovators with recognition and in some cases monetarily. People don’t necessarily want fame and fortune for their innovation that cuts a process time in half, but they do want credit for it, and they want it reflected on their performance reviews.

Ask the Right Questions, Listen to the Answers

Many leadership coaching programs help leaders learn to listen better and communicate better – skills that are absolutely essential to the innovative company. Good communication can be hard work, but it pays off. Here are some good questions leaders can ask their teams to get the conversation started about innovation:

  • What is something good that happened since we talked last?
  • What went wrong since we last talked, and how did you learn from it?
  • What have you found that was broken, and how did you try to fix it?
  • What are some ways you have helped motivate others?
  • Are there any roadblocks that I could help clear for you?

Naturally, these questions are meaningless if you don’t genuinely and sincerely listen to the answers and be prepared to act on them. As any leadership coach will tell you, follow-through is essential. Otherwise, such questions and answers are a waste of time.

The harsh truth is that lack of innovation within a company indicates a lack of good leadership. People may still innovate on their own, to make their own workday easier, but they won’t feel any need to share those innovations with their leaders. Innovation requires buy-in at every organizational level, and not just empty words.

Leadership development programs in companies that say they value innovation must teach leaders how to go beyond verbally “supporting” innovation. Leaders must also learn specific steps to take both tactically and strategically to genuinely support innovation. Otherwise, it will never happen.

If you are interested in developing a culture of innovation in your organization, I encourage you to check out my books, particularly Cultural Transformations: Lessons of Leadership and Corporate Reinvention. Innovative ideas need a culture of acceptance and reward to be able to fulfill their promise.

The Important Role of Humor in Executive Leadership

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Have you ever walked into a workspace where everyone has a face like thunder, and you can’t imagine laughter ever having been heard inside those four walls?

Who wants to block out 40 or more hours per week where laughter isn’t allowed?

Who would ever want to work there? And why wouldn’t any healthy, hard-working person stuck there to jump ship at the first opportunity? Humor has a place in every work environment, including those that regularly deal with the most serious situations, like criminal law and critical care in hospitals. Spending 40 or more hours per week in an environment where laughter is tacitly forbidden is a terrible prospect indeed.

Laughter vs. Taking Work Seriously Is a False Dichotomy

The idea that you can’t laugh and still claim to take your work seriously is a false dichotomy. In reality, when gravity and levity are in healthy balance, both become more powerful. The concepts of mindfulness and being in the moment have gained status in the modern workplace, as leaders strive to build positive, productive company culture. And few things in life are as “in the moment” as humor.

You can think of humor as a sort of mini-vacation from the normal stresses of work. In fact, one study found that people who watched a funny video before completing a tedious task demonstrated increased persistence in performing the task. Humor can actually raise productivity, in other words.

How Appropriate Humor from Leaders Improves Work Culture

Many leaders are not aware of just how “contagious” their disposition is. A leader who never laughs, or who otherwise demonstrates that humor is unacceptable can hardly expect a team that is unfailingly motivated. Humor that is appropriate to the situation not only relieves stress, but can counteract boredom, increase engagement, and improve creativity and collaboration. It’s also a sign of healthy emotional intelligence.

One study found that watching a funny video before tackling a tedious task improved persistence.

Shared humor within a group increases cohesiveness, and there’s a physiological basis for it. Humor decreases levels of stress hormones like epinephrine while activating the brain’s dopamine-dispensing “reward” system. And laughter in stressful times (like after losing a big client) can actually help teams better envision and work toward their goals together.

Tips for Using Humor Appropriately

For those in positions of leadership, appropriate humor never “punches downward.” In a work environment, the target of the humor should typically be one’s self or a common “enemy” (like the bad weather, or an aging software system). It should always come from a place of authenticity and honesty.

At work, good humor often has an element of “conspiracy,” as in, “We’re all in this together.” Laughing at oneself (particularly if you’re in a leadership position) is a way of signaling to everyone that everything is going to be OK.

And be assured that laughter in the workplace is good for business. One survey found that 84% of people believe that people with a strong sense of humor do a better job. Another survey, by the Bell Leadership Institute, found that when asked to describe leadership strengths in their organization, “work ethic” and “sense of humor” were mentioned twice as often as any other phrases. The key is to laugh with your team members, and never at them.

Leadership coaching often focuses on improving communication skills and learning where, when, and how to use humor appropriately is indicative of strong communication. Leadership coaches can’t teach leaders how to be funny, but they can help leaders learn that it’s OK – or even highly beneficial – to loosen up sometimes. Using humor appropriately is a hallmark of good emotional intelligence, and understanding and developing emotional intelligence is often part of the leadership coaching process.

Working hard and getting results does not require leaving your sense of humor at the door. In fact, study after study indicates that a workplace where levity has a place alongside seriousness is a healthy, productive workplace.

Humor is in no way the enemy of business but has a place in the healthy, productive, and successful execution of business. I want to invite you to check out my books, particularly Cultural Transformations: Lessons of Leadership and Corporate Reinvention, which is a roadmap for creating a sustainable, positive corporate culture in today’s rapidly evolving business world.

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