Articles on Management, Leadership, Strategy and Teamwork

To become a better leader, follow this ten-year research study (Source: A Bias for Action by Bruch and Ghosal), which claims that for a leader to create a culture that has a bias for action, two qualities need to be developed: Focus – having one overarching, ambitious goal Energy – having positive energy or willpower to Read more…

To Become a Better Leader, Develop These Two Abilities

Core competencies to help you become a better manager and leader and boost your career…

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Developing Leadership Capacity

Most organizations still exist inside the big box that is defined by their organization chart. And within that big box, there exists many more interconnected boxes. Some organizations have tried to get rid of these boxes, for example replacing them with circles, but these are still boxes, albeit without the edges. Being the head of Read more…

To Become a Better Leader, Get Out of Your Box

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics Every effective leader I’ve come across has honed their leadership skills not through formal education but through practicing and “being” a leader. Reflecting upon those with impressive leadership skills that I personally know, and Read more…

Leadership Skills: You Can’t Become a Leader by Attending Courses on Leadership

Leadership skills involve a range of critical behaviors that you must master to be successful.

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Leadership Skills – Contradictory Leadership Behaviors You Must Master

It’s hardly a surprise for most managers that using data in problem solving and decision making is important. But one prominent advocate of using data, the late W. Edwards Deming, a statistician by profession, did not try to use data to make decisions. He used data as a starting point to develop what he termed “profound knowledge” that would reveal systemic causes of problems.

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You Can’t Lead by Using Big Data

Leaders come in all forms. But GREAT leaders, those who are recognised for being so, share a few things in common. Here are seven factors that I have discovered in working with great leaders:

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How to Be a GREAT Leader

You’ve spent a good deal of time and energy working with your team to craft a vision and set of supporting values and long range strategic goals. Now comes the time to release your creation to the world.

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How to Be a Truly Authentic Leader

You’ve established your vision, communicated it well, and people are obviously enthused about your direction and trust you to follow through on it. And while you are working on becoming more and more authentic and vulnerable, balancing being strong with being humble, your real test has yet to come.

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How to Be a Truly Courageous Leader

The Canada-Alberta Job Grant will provide up to $10,000 per trainee! Alberta employers are already taking advantage of the Canada-Alberta Job Grant. Since October, over $1 million has been approved on a wide variety of training programs such as Construction Project Management, Welding Supervisor, and Diversity and Inclusion Mentorship Training.  Through the Canada-Alberta Job Grant, Read more…

Prepare for the future by training staff now

When you observe an employee engaging in a behaviour that you recognize as undesirable or in contravention of established team values, then you need to take action. Here are some tips on how to give constructive feedback in the workplace:

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How to Give Constructive Feedback

Strategy development processes emphasise vision, mission, values, strategic goals, key performance indicators and key initiatives. But one of the biggest drivers of strategic success are the core beliefs you and your team hold as your pursue your strategy. Yet most strategy development processes ignore this factor. Even values, which are closely aligned with beliefs, often Read more…

Strategy Development: Why Your Management Team’s Core Beliefs Matter

“It’s not the consumer’s job to know what they want” – Steve Jobs As a leader, you are challenged to keep every person on your team customer or client focused. You are also challenged to reinvent your products, programs or services. Should you seek out the Voice of the Customer, or rely upon the Voice of Read more…

The Voice of the Customer Meets the Voice of the Expert

What motivates people? This article reveals seven ways to motivate yourself and your team. Do you really understand what motivates people? Are you still trying to decipher and apply the Maslow or Herzberg theories, but struggling? Motivational psychologists and researchers have, in recent years, discovered more about what motivates us than what we know from decades Read more…

What Motivates People? Seven Secrets to Motivating You and Your Team

Customer loyalty, and more specifically the role of leadership in creating such loyalty, is of paramount importance to your organization. How then do you, as a leader, create it?

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Customer Loyalty: Why Your Customers Are Not Loyal

Focused leadership always wins out over scattered leadership. But many leaders find themselves unfocused, chasing too many priorities…

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Leadership’s First Priority: Provide FOCUS

Leadership versus Management – they both have many facets, but the ones that distinguish leadership from management are clear:

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Leadership versus Management

Strategic Planning never did fully get off the ground. Which is not surprising, since “strategy” and “planning” are oxymoronic. Let me explain this by way of illustration… A Virgin Strategy Sir Richard Branson, the renowned leader of the Virgin empire, tells the story of when he decided to create Virgin Airlines…not a small strategic step Read more…

The End of Strategic Planning, and What That Means for You

As a leader, you have a responsibility to provide direction, to “point the way”. You do this through creating a shared vision of the future. You can’t delegate this task. While you can, and must, collaborate with others in building a shared vision, you can’t walk away from your primary responsibility to create that vision. You have to own it.

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How Do You Create an Inspiring or Compelling Vision?

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs According to some experts the majority Read more…

Focus and Simplicity in Strategic Planning
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