Kalmia Records Blog

A previous article outlined the horrific costs associated with Inventory Shrinkage in the retail industry - approximately 4% of the total annual inventory costs. A good POS (Point of Sale) system can help cut this in half by helping to eliminate two of the major causes of Inventory Shrinkage - internal theft and “messed up paperwork”. The last article dealt with the “carrots” you can implement with a good Point of Sale system to reduce the internal theft component of Inventory Shrinkage. It covered things like improved communications, profit sharing, employee discounts, and the tracking and offering of sales commissions, SPIF’s, etc.

In this article, I’m going to show how a Point of Sale system can be used to reduce internal theft using the “stick” of increased security measures. A following article will discuss how to improve “messed up paperwork”.

A good Point of Sale system should balance between carrots and sticks, but sometimes the only way to reach some employees is through a “stick” of an effective security program and a straightforward policy of prosecuting any employee caught stealing. Here are some sticks that a good POS can give you.

• Each employee should have a username and password required to log on to the Point of Sale system. This promotes accountability, especially if they know that transactions can be immediately traced back to an individual

• Run frequent Administrator Reports - daily or at least once a week. By keeping a close eye on sales and inventory and by immediately following up on discrepancies, staff will soon learn that nothing gets by “ol’ Eagle-eye”

• Prevent unauthorized “markdowns” by setting security levels to reflect what the individual needs to do. Frontline salespeople don’t need to access the Accounting backend, and only those responsible for receiving inventory should be able to adjust stock levels. Your POS should have complete flexibility to customize security access and “clone” settings, so all Salespeople have similar security access

• There will always be situations where Salespeople may need to offer a discount to make a sale. Make sure your POS can handle predetermined sales discounts on a per item basis - with or without a “Manager’s Override” required

• Brazen theft of cash from the cash register is reduced when your POS can give real-time reconciliations simply and quickly, and with the complete itemized list of who did what transactions

• Refunds are often an area of “vulnerability” that is open to employee abuse. Your POS should be able to quickly access the original sale based on the item being returned. A complete sales history of both the customer and the inventory item, coupled with the salesperson involved, can also identify any suspicious activity

• Receiving and Shipping are also areas prone to potential “mishandling”. Your POS should automatically handle Purchase Orders, generate Receiving forms, and easily handle short-shipped and backordered items. All this information should be immediately and easily available for spot checks

Jim Hawkins works at Windward Software, developers of Point of Sale software, and is passionate about promoting “best practices” in business. For more information about how Windward Software can help your business improve its processes, visit us at http://wws5.com

Many of the clients I work with in success coaching can relate to the following example.

If you have ever been to the circus, you have probably seen the side show in which a clown or juggler puts a plate on a stick and spins it. Then he puts another plate on a stick and spins that one, and another, and another, etc. A neat trick, but then he has to constantly run around to keep all the plates spinning.

Now there’s a metaphor for modern life if I’ve ever heard one.

In order to talk in a useful way about time management, we need to call it what it really is, which is life management. Each of us is given twenty four hours each day in which to manage our lives. That’s why I call my time/life management seminars “24 and No More.”

In order to manage your time and therefore your life, well, a very important distinction needs to be made. Do you organize your life around work or do you organize your work around your life? A key distinction to be made is that if you are part of a family, your most important job is not at work, it’s at home.

Having said all that, let’s put some hands and feet onto this idea of time/life management, and provide you with some solutions you can take home.

Get organized. That’s step one. So much time is spent and wasted looking for something or doing something over and over again, when a little organization can allow you to organize once and be done with it.

If you are at all like me and don’t come by organization naturally, either hire or borrow someone who has the gift of organization. Or you could get lucky like me and marry someone with this gift.

Create systems. Creating systems for doing things is a great time saver. In fact, an acronym for system is:

Saves
You
Some
Time
Energy and
Money.

Prioritized To Do Lists. Remember, a to do list is a tool that you use to work for you, not you for it. A prioritized to do list is divided into three categories, A tasks, B tasks, and C tasks. A tasks are things that must be done today, B tasks are things you would like to get done today, and C tasks are things you can get done with any extra time. If you have items left over at the end of the day, simply put them behind you for the day and move them on to the next day’s list.

“But what if all my tasks are A tasks?” That’s a question I often hear. Here’s a two part answer to the question. Part one is to go back through the list and ask this question, “What will happen if I don’t get this task done today?” If you can live with the answer, it may not be an A task. Part two is, if all your tasks are really A tasks, then the key is to…….

Delegate. That’s a fancy way of saying ask for help. It’s amazing to me how willing most people are to help. Just about every time I’ve gotten over my pride and asked for help with something, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

Block Scheduling. For those of us who have multiple projects and multiple daily demands, block scheduling can be a real life saver. Block scheduling simply means to set aside blocks of time on a daily, weekly, monthly basis in order to do certain tasks. Barring a true emergency, nothing is to interfere with the task scheduled for this time.

There are at least three clear benefits to block scheduling:

a time is set aside to accomplish key tasks
lower anxiety knowing there is time set aside
you get more done.

Visit SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

It is possible to find about 2,050,000,000 “problems” on the internet.

Often, problems do not get solved because they do not have an owner. They saunter around like orphans that are not taken care of.

This could be the case when a problem is too big to address for a single owner. Today, a local newspaper reviewed the situation about the shrinking of the Greenland Glaciers. It is a problem that might cause a disaster in the end, but which (impact) is nearly invisible at the moment. It is a standard long-term versus short-term issue where the former is not often favored. Until there is no real need, no action will be undertaken. Besides that, not everybody could be convinced that the melting will indeed cause a problem.

Problems that do get attention are those where the urgency is high. The Internet site of a company that goes down for example. The production process could delay because of a part that was not delivered (and previously purchased) by the purchase department. Or a constant jam in the traffic to your call center because of a lack of agents (the problem of giving stress to your agents). For this last issue the owner of the problem is the manager of the call center. Although…

There are available agents in the team next door, owned by another manager. The call overflow could be routed to this neighboring team (call center), but the problem will be shifted; to another team and to another moment in time.

It is not sexy to talk about problems. You should rather focus on a challenge. Either way, something needs to get solved. And that is no problem;

It is possible to find 3,230,000,000 “Solutions” on the Internet.

And that is another reason why problems do not always get an owner. It is much more interesting to own a solution. There are too many of them, the question is, do they solve “your” problem?

© 2006 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.
You can apply for a free demo account

For scientists who want to move ahead in their careers, the ability to give a truly great formal science presentation is a vital skill. Being able to give an outstanding presentation is important in all phases of your career. When you are interviewing for a new job, the presentation is almost always a major part of the interview process; often it is the first chance that your prospective coworkers get to see what you can offer. Even when you are comfortable in a stable position, you still need to be able to give a great presentation at a moment’s notice in order to advance your career.
In talking with scientists I have found that this ability can be a highly effective way to get noticed by management in an organization.

In addition, taking the time to prepare formal presentations can help your career in another way. As you take the time to organize your thoughts for a presentation you will find your overall understanding of the material improving. Most people aren’t born with the ability to consistently deliver a great presentation, but learning some basic skills and continuous practice can dramatically improve your presentations.

In any presentation you give, the primary goal is to communicate some idea or concept to your audience. The easiest way to really communicate with your audience is to capture their attention and really engage them in the material. One surefire way to do this is to display an appropriate amount of enthusiasm for your subject matter. If you present with too little energy, your audience will have no reason to pay attention to you. On the other hand, if you bounce around like a motivational speaker after 20 cups of coffee, you will not be taken seriously. The ideal balance is to let yourself express a sincere interest in your material. A second way to get the audience’s attention is to use overheads or slides that are useful and easy to read. Again, balance is the key; your overheads should not be too cluttered with information and graphics or be full of empty spaces. It is important to put time and thought into developing interesting and visually appealing overheads or slides, with each individual overhead communicating a distinct point.

Once you have captured the audience’s attention, you can really engage them in the material. Perhaps the single biggest key to keeping your audience engaged is to aim a little low in terms of the knowledge that you expect the audience to have. In most situations you will not just be presenting to experts in your field, but also to scientists who have only partial knowledge of the details of your field. As soon as you launch into heavy jargon, you run the risk of losing a good chunk of your audience. This method of breaking down your presentation into easy to understand pieces has the added benefit of increasing your own understanding of the material.
Another useful technique for engaging an audience is to organize your presentation into a story. Having a narrative to follow throughout the course of your talk can really help the listener to keep up, even if they are not familiar with the exact field that you are speaking on. On a related note, the more that you can illustrate the technical details with cartoons and other visual representations, the more successful your presentations will be. One well-designed figure that explains a concept or technique can be used in many different presentations, so it is worth your time to develop a distinctive and informative figure.

There are also a number of tricks and techniques that you can use to help your audience stay engaged with what you are saying. The most important aspect of your presentation style is your pacing; your goal is to find a pace of speaking and presenting that does not bore anyone or leave anyone behind. The best way to find this pace is to know your audience and adjust to any feedback you get from the audience during the early part of the talk. One good way to periodically slow down the pace of your presentation and make sure your audience can keep up is to explain what the axes are in the graphs that you are presenting. Graphs can be a wonderful way to illustrate important results or ideas, but they can also be a real barrier to understanding a talk that is a little outside of your area of expertise. Everyone who works in the field automatically knows what the graph is telling them, while those who are less familiar can easily get lost. Taking a moment to define the axes gets everyone on the same page and has the added bonus of helping you maintain a reasonable pace of presentation.

It is also crucial that you look at your audience as much as possible during your talk. When you are facing your audience, not only can they hear you better, but they will also be more motivated to pay attention if they know that you can see them losing focus. Of course, it is also much easier to get feedback from your audience when you are actually looking at them! One little trick to get yourself to look out at the audience is to think of yourself as Vanna White on the Wheel of Fortune. When you are pointing at something on screen, you don’t need to stare at it. Instead you can point like Vanna while facing the audience, allowing your audience can see and hear you.

Incorporating a joke into a presentation can be another way to keep your audience engaged. However, there are some caveats to consider when you are injecting humor into your presentation. The best jokes are delivered with a light touch. If your audience gets it, that’s great, wait a moment and then move on. If the audience doesn’t acknowledge the joke, you need to be able to move ahead with the talk rather than waiting for a laugh that probably won’t come. It goes without saying that you should also be careful not to use jokes with offensive content.

By using these techniques to capture your audience’s attention and keep them engaged, you will be able to deliver outstanding scientific presentations. Of course, the only way to develop the skills you need is to practice giving presentations as much as you can. Only through repeated practice and feedback can you master the art of giving great science presentations.

Gary Lavine, PhD

“How This Scientist Discovered Strategies to take his career to the next level
And Why They Will Work For Anyone! Guaranteed!”
Warning: You Won’t Find This In Any Educational Institution!
FREE Professional Career Guide Shows You How…

You are a leader if someone is following you. This could be as simple as one person watching you and following your example and encouragement, to being a leader in your home, your community, your workplace or even your nation. Leadership can take many forms, but typically it often involves managing people- one of the most difficult of all tasks. It means coordinating and motivating the actions of others to achieve a common goal. A leader has to establish that goal, and gain the willing agreement of others to be governed by and work together towards that goal.

The style of leadership taken by any leader is usually predetermined by the personality and motivational values of that person. They are who they are, as a personality, and that has a strong influence on the way they lead and communicate with others.

The study of personality traits has been on going for centuries, and there is a great deal of agreement in the conclusions and findings of personality characteristics. In this article I am going to refer to the different types of personality in color form, adopts the categories applied by Linda Berens and Don Lowry.

Every personality type has particular talents and skills that lend themselves to good leadership. Any form of leadership however, is greatly enriched and enhanced if it is able to draw on the strengths and characteristics of the other styles.

A leader who has a strong Gold personality type is personally committed and dedicated to the goal. They work hard, and expect their team to do the same. They lead from a place of belief that the work is important, and has to be done right. Gold leaders value tradition- the ways of the past are proven ways, and so do not take well to new ideas unless they are well proven to have potential.

Leaders with a strong Blue personality are motivated by their commitment to the people involved, and a strong sense of community. They have a democratic style of management, valuing the input of employees and team workers. Blue leaders tend to see the big picture, and have the ability to inspire others with the vision.

The strong Green leadership style also sees the big picture as well as the complexity of detail. Green leaders excel in strategy. They bring intellect, ingenuity and design into the leadership role. They research and analyze facts and concepts, constantly looking for improvements for working smarter rather than harder. Facts and information are all important to the Green leader, and they pay little attention to the value of feelings and relationships.

Action is the focus of the Orange leader. Administration and organization exist to make action possible. They are great troubleshooters. The Orange leader leads by example, setting the standard to follow. Orange management style can be quite authoritarian and abrupt as they are impatient with opposition, and expect their directions to be followed. Above all Orange leaders welcome change believing that the old ways can always be improved on. A new project represents, adventure, a challenge and potential fun, all of which the Orange personality thrives on.

Every leader has a combination of all four personalities, but one will always be the stronger, more natural way to operate in. A leader’s style may also be a blend of their main strength, combined with their second strongest style. A wise leader will understand the strengths and weaknesses of their personal leadership style and use those team members with different styles to bring balance and greater efficiency in meeting the shared goal.

For more leadership
and teambuilding resources.

Barbara White is the President of Beyond Better Development. As a speaker and
author, Barbara brings her passion and expertise in href="http://www.livingbeyondbetter.com/seminars.html" rel="nofollow">leadership
development to work with people to help them grow towards excellence in their
personal and professional life. For more articles visit href="http://www.livingbeyondbetter.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.livingbeyondbetter.com

Decades ago, a now renowned orchestra leader, just starting out as an assistant, experienced a defining moment that would shape his future. He was rehearsing the Cleveland Orchestra in a Chopin piano concerto. He recalls, “An oboe solo went over me like some kind of tidal wave. I thought, ‘Nothing could make that any more beautiful.’ And it came straight from the oboist. It wasn’t because I did something.”

He had hit upon a powerful principle of conducting that would come to inform his style; and in reading about it, I realized it’s also a powerful, though seldom realized, leadership principle to inform your career. It’s a principle that if manifested daily will make you a dramatically more effective leader. And it’s a principle that calls for the end of leadership as it has been commonly known.

The principle is: The best results come not from what you make happen but from what you LET happen.

It might seem like a simple, if not simplistic, concept. Why is it so important and why does it call for something as seemingly presumptuous as the end of leadership?

Let’s first look at the word and concept of leadership. “Leadership” comes from an old Norse word meaning “To make go.” The trouble is, people misunderstand who makes what go.

The orthodox view of leadership is that the leader makes things go by directing people and resources towards certain goals. But within the context of this principle, this view misses what great leadership is about.

Having consulted for several decades with leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies world wide, I’ve seen what great things can happen when the leader lets them happen.

In a recent interview, the conductor noted that conductors can control a performance only up to a certain point, and they go wrong if they want to control it further. He says: “You have to leave room for the possibility that geniuses in the orchestra will bring you things you can’t teach them. In rehearsal, I try to leave it short of tacking it down, because if it is tacked down, you can hear that all the way through. You can hear the conductor say, ‘Do it this way.’ And I don’t want that. I want to feel they absorbed it, and they play it to you as if they were a large chamber group. And when they get near that, it seems like a success to me.”

To take this principle into your daily activities as a leader, do these three things.

1. Change your assumptions. The conductor, inspired by the oboist, changed his fundamental assumptions on how to bring out the best in an orchestra. So you as a leader, to adhere to the principle, should change your assumptions on how you relate to people to get results. Your trust in their abilities trumps your abilities in almost all cases.

Abraham Lincoln described this truth in another way: “You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s independence and initiative.”

I’m not talking about a simple change in mind set; to achieve great results by letting things happen, you should undergo a transformation of your consciousness so broad and deep that it animates your activities throughout your career. When you come to understand that your leadership is not just about compelling or persuading people to act in certain ways but helping them bring out the best in themselves, you’ll make big advances in your effectiveness.

2. Be rigorous. Just as the conductor had to be working with highly skilled and disciplined musicians, you cannot apply this principle to unskilled, undisciplined people. Bringing out the best in people by letting things happen entails, on the part of everyone involved, hard work, clear communication, cultivation of job skills, and a dedication to practical processes.

For instance, for more than 20 years, I’ve been teaching leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide a practical process called the Leadership Talk. (My website shows more about it.) The Talk helps leaders not to order people to do things but have them want to do things. That ‘want to’ is the pivot point of getting great results by letting things happen.

3. Be results-oriented. The conductor understood the performance wasn’t for his ego or the musicians but for the audience. This is a patently obvious point, but many leaders, strangely enough, miss this point. Just like conductors who are into “tacking it down”, these leaders focus on cementing their power at the expense of releasing the greater power inherent in the people they lead.

There is only one reason letting things happen can truly be a trumpet call for you to end your commitment to orthodox leadership: It gets results. In fact, if the imperative is not helping you get far more results than ever before, don’t heed the call; stick with the old leadership methods.

Mind you, if you do answer the call, know that putting an end to orthodoxy may not happen all at once. The endeavor can be carried out many times daily for the rest of your career. You’ll often fail. But keep trying. Fail forward, fail better.

Clearly, this approach is not for every leader, but when it’s fruits become evident, it may turn out to be a skill most leaders will endeavor to master. And, by such mastery, you, like the conductor as a young assistant, will come to shape your future through truly beautiful moments that achieve more results.

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 21 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com For more about the Leadership Talk: http://www.theleadershiptalk.com

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they fly by.” -Douglas Adams, Author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams heard a lot of whooshing in the course of turning The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy into a cult phenomenon. It started as a radio program, became a book (ultimately a six book trilogy), a TV series, a video game and most recently a movie. It might actually have been made into a film before Adams’ untimely death had it not been for his highly refined skill of procrastination. In fact, it’s startling than one so creatively prolific had to almost be forced to produce. At one point, his editors resorted to locking him in a hotel room for three weeks just to get him to complete a project. And you thought you had problems getting folks to meet their deadlines!

What is it about deadlines that make even the most stable among us recoil in horror and begin plotting subversive campaigns of résistance? Perhaps it’s because the dark origins of the term itself are rooted deeply in our psyche. The word was coined at the Andersonville military prison during the Civil War. Prison guards drew a line roughly seventeen feet around the interior wall of the compound. Any prisoner crossing that line was assumed to be escaping and would be shot dead. This was a literal dead line.

A more benign understanding of the term crept into our language during the 1920’s. Newspaper editors began using the word to indicate the latest possible time copy could be submitted in order to meet a press run. The expression gained quick popularity and soon students, workers and folks in general had to face the dreaded deadline.

While we may not like deadlines, they’re really pretty helpful tools and something that every leader should use. One of the best reasons for using deadlines is that they establish clarity between the person making an assignment and the one receiving it. Almost everyone has had the unhappy experience of discovering that when the Boss said, “Get to it when you can,” they actually meant “get to it now!” A deadline takes the mystery out such individual expectations. In the same spirit, deadlines help you set priorities. Even in an age where everything is a priority, reason must sometimes prevail (at least in theory). A deadline provides a legitimate negotiating point”if I accept this deadline, this other one will have to slip; which will it be?” Finally, deadlines establish accountability. It’s simply one of life’s truisms, that when someone is held accountable, things tend to get done. When no one is accountable nothing gets done. It’s also true that being held accountable isn’t always comfortable. Maybe that’s why we don’t like deadlines.

Of course, none of this matters when you’re on the receiving end of a deadline you’d rather not meet. If it’s any consolation, just remember that even Superman (as Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent) had to endure the same tribulation despite his unique powers. So give them a chance. Perhaps, like Clark Kent, you’ll discover that deadlines don’t contain Green Kryptonite and unlike Douglas Adams, you won’t have to be locked in a hotel room to get your work done!

About the Author:

George Ebert is the President of Trinity River Seminars and Consulting, a firm specializing in the custom design and delivery of team building, personal growth and ethical development programs. Mr. Ebert is a highly sought after speaker, educator, and consultant with over thirty years experience in both the public and private sectors. He has presented widely throughout the Unites States. George is the author of the management cult classic, “Climbing From the Fifth Station: A guide to building teams that work!”

Don’t let go of your dreams. If you have determination and belief in your dreams, you will succeed in spite of your desire to let go.

One notable person who demonstrated this attitude was Washington Roebling. He and his father had a dream of building a suspension bridge. Not long after starting construction, his father died. Washington carried on but was struck with the paralyzing caisson disease. It was impossible for him to go to the site. But possessed with a dream, a strong desire, and with the help of his wife, Emily, he was able to complete the Brooklyn Bridge.

This story has many themes in it: determination; your dreams; and choice.

Here was a man who suffered the death of his father and became paralyzed, yet, because he was determined he did not give up on his dreams!

In every situation we have a choice. We can either choose the negative or we can choose the positive — the choice is ours. In Washington’s situation he could have felt sorry for himself and gave up on his project. He chose, however, to continue with the help of others.

In situations you are confronted with which do you choose. . .
the positive or the negative?

About The Author:
Catherine Pulsifer is one of the editors of Words of Wisdom 4 U, http://www.wow4u.com. You will find a collection of inspirational quotes, inspirational poems, and more at Words of Wisdom 4 U!

Years ago when I started in this business, it seemed many clients had difficulty identifying their priorities. This isn’t as true today as it was then. Unfortunately, now what I hear clients say is…’I can identify my priorities with no problem, but I can’t get to them. At the end of the day I look up and realize I never got to the one thing I needed to do.’ We are all busier today than ever before. A certain amount of chaos in our lives has become acceptable. But it has also cost us focus. Here are a few suggestions on identifying and working on getting to your priorities:

Create SMART goals and visit them regularly.

In order to know your priorities, you first need to know your goalsboth personal and professionalbecause one flows from the other. Make sure your goals are SMART. Zig Ziglar says SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Relevant and Timelined. Now make sure you visit them daily. If your goals are SMART and visible, you are paving the road to then identifying your priorities.

Create focus time.

If you have identified your priorities but are not protecting time to work on them, you are setting yourself up for frustration and stress. Everyone deserves some amount of uninterrupted time to work on things they have identified as ‘important’…and not necessarily ‘urgent’. The Covey Time Matrix this represents Quadrant II activity and it is where about 75% of our time should be spent. If you think you don’t have time to do this, consider the fact that you don’t have time NOT to do this.

Minimize priority busters.

During my ‘Clear your desk. Clear your mind. Organize it.’ workshop, we identify and talk about how to handle the 3 top priority bustersinterruptions, overcommitment and procrastination. Not only are we interrupted at least 8 times an hour, but it takes about 20 minutes to climb back into the project we were working on prior the interruption. If you are committed to your priorities, over-committing is more difficult. Each time you encourage or allow an interruption or over-commitment, you are letting others pull you into their priority at the expense of your own. The third and most obvious priority buster is…procrastination. Every time you delay a decision to work on something important, you become your own priority buster! Identify your procrastination roadblocks and move forward in overcoming them.

Begin practicing these basic time management principles and remember…time flies but YOU are the navigator.

Copyright 2002. Cynthia Kyriazis. All rights reserved.

Cynthia Kyriazis is an organizing and time management consultant, trainer, speaker, coach and author with over 20 years management experience in multi-unit corporations. Organize it, a division of Productivity Partners, Inc. is an organizational training firm she founded in 1995 and has been serving Fortune 500 clients ever since. Cynthia works with business and their employees to help improve performance and realize productivity gains.

Cynthia has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Kansas City Star and the Legal Intelligencer. She currently serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), member of the Kansas City of the International Society for Performance Improvement - (ISPI-KC) and consultant to the American Coaching Association.

In today’s highly competitive world, there is a lot of pressure on leaders to create highly productive organizations. To be successful with this task, leaders will need all of the talent, skills, techniques, and experience they can muster through leadership development. The pressure to succeed can create a real dilemma: whether to “manage” people or to “lead” people. At CMOE, we maintain that in order to achieve high levels of employee engagement and morale, people in authority must learn how to show others the way, be a “lighthouse,” rather than to “railroad” people into compliance by telling, commanding, or controlling them. Respected leaders easily gain loyalty and mutual agreement with their followers (loyalty demanded is loyalty denied).

Leaders who earn the respect and commitment of their followers demonstrate qualities and characteristics that run deeper than leadership skills, techniques, and knowledge alone. Effective leaders lead by example and exhibit their true character consistently. This in turn causes people to voluntarily support an organization’s mission and purpose. They know that leadership is a privilege. It means you have to consistently do the right thing for the right reasons. Good leadership is an inner choice. It is character based. Good leaders will give your organization a competitive edge; bogus leadership, on the other hand, will cost you in critical times when you need the support of followers the most.

There are basically three kinds of leaders in organizations today: unsuccessful ones, those who are occasionally successful, and those who consistently maintain the commitment of followers on a long term basis. The third type requires an understanding of the finer qualities of leadership, character, and values. Character based leadership cannot be achieved by arrogant or power-hungry managers who choose to intimidate others. Sometimes those in authority feel driven to be overly aggressive, take short cuts, and do what is expedient versus doing what is right. Others will make a “Wall Street driven” decision that is not focused on the long term well being of stockholders, customers, or employees.

In CMOE’s leadership training, we acquaint participants with (or reaffirm) the fundamental qualities and characteristics leaders need to possess. For example, in our leadership development training, we examine the quality of courage. Leaders will always be required to make the right decisions and manage dilemmas. They must also take risks and at times withstand the ridicule from others. Courage is the strength to choose and stand for the right course of action. Leaders will experience failure (the great teacher), and leaders must respond courageously to failure and take responsibility. Owning up to a failed action, learning from it, and adjusting your course is a courageous act. Giving someone bad news, confronting a sensitive conflict, and giving feedback to others takes skill, tact, and most definitely courage. Courage can only come from deep within one’s being. In CMOE’s leadership development, we help leaders improve or strengthen this characteristic.

It is this courage that distinguishes great leaders from those who have skills but don’t convert their knowledge to proper actions and decisions. Courage, rather than power, position, or techniques, defines great leadership.

Leadership without character will eventually create “motivation fall out.” Without genuine leadership, people will not set up and contribute their talents and energy. If they feel manipulated with “slick” techniques they will withdraw their support and loyalty. In our leadership development curriculum, we connect leaders with qualities like:

• Inclusiveness / Collaboration
  
• Integrity
  
• Accountability
  
• Accessibility & Humility
  
• Credibility

This is a time when we need leaders and members alike who can move forward, think positively, and act creatively. Character based leadership provides the foundation for building skills and confidence.

For more information about CMOE’s 30 years of experience in leadership development, call toll free at 1-888-262-2499.