7 Signs You're Not as Self-Aware as You Think

7 Signs You're Not as Self-Aware as You Think

Self-awareness is a really big deal for everyone, especially executives and business leaders. Failure to face reality can destroy your career and your company.

Being in the advice giving game isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's not like you get to sit on a mountaintop and just rain down pearls of wisdom on your clients. When it comes to executives and business leaders, it's almost never that black and white.

Granted, there are times when people are genuinely open to the voice of experience and perhaps a little objectivity. Then there's the opposite extreme: deep denial. Where they don't want to hear the truth no matter what you say or how you say it.

And in between those black and white peaks is a vast plane of gray, where people sort of know, deep down, what they need to do but something's stopping them from doing it. That something is almost always beneath the surface, meaning it isn't easy to get to and folks will often confound, thwart, or downright resist the effort.

The truth is there are lots of paths people take to avoid confronting whatever it is they don't want to confront. And those paths can lead to career demise or business destruction. No kidding.
Here are seven signs you may be heading down the latter path.

You're a bully. If you didn't have emotions, you wouldn't be human. Feelings are important guidance mechanisms. Anger and aggression are no different. They're signs that you feel threatened or scared. You go on the offensive and bully to protect something deep within you, something you don't want people to see, often feelings of weakness and vulnerability. Ironic, isn't it?

You're defensive. When chief executives resist a consultant or executive coach who wants to meet with their staff or outside directors one-on-one, when genuine and objective feedback makes them agitated or even angry, that's a sure sign. I'm not even sure why they call it "defensive, since defensive people almost always deflect by going on the offensive.

You're controlling. When you behave in a controlling way--when you micromanage, pick on the little things--it usually means you're not dealing with a big thing that's really bugging you. It means you're not paying attention to something really important. Left unchecked, that can definitely take you down a dark path.

You're passive aggressive. When you say, "Sure, no problem," then turn around and do the exact opposite, it means you don't want to confront others or be confronted by them. It's a deflection, an attempt to throw them off the scent so you don't have to deal with something that affects you deeply. Again, it's usually something you're not consciously aware of, something that makes you feel vulnerable or embarrassed.

Your behavior changes. When your behavior changes to the point where it's noticeable to others who know or work with you, that's definitely a sign that you're really bothered by something and not aware of how it's affecting your mood. If someone brings it to your attention and you're defensive, that's an even bigger sign.

You're grandiose. When we make over-the-top overtures to how confident we are in our ideas, our plans, our business, when our strategies defy objective reasoning or our goals don't pass the smell test, that's a sign we're genuinely in over our heads and are overcompensating to appear like we've got everything under control. I've seen and worked with quite a few CEOs in grandiose mode. If they don't come to terms with it, it never ends well.

You make excuses. Excuses, any kind of excuses, are ways of avoiding or deflecting negative attention. Pointing fingers and blaming others are common avoidance techniques that communicate our resistance to being held accountable. That's why playing the blame game is such a transparent sign of dysfunctional leadership or management. And yet, we see it all-too-often, don't we?





By: Steve Tobak


Source: Inc.

15 Of The Worlds Greatest Business Minds Have Something To Share With You

These 15 Incredible Business Men of our time have broken through the boundaries and have left an imprint in the business and corporate world. Who else bettter than the geniuses themselves to quote great advice from.

Read on for some unforgettable advice from the worlds greatest business minds of our time.

The Modern Day Gurus:

Richard Branson

Company: Virgin Group

“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”

William Henry “Bill” Gates III

Company: Microsoft

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

Donald Trump

“You’re fired!”

“Now, if your boss is a sadist, then you have a big problem. In that case, fire your boss and get a new job.”

Steve Jobs

Company: Apple Inc. and The Walt Disney Company

“We’re gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make ‘me too’ products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it’s always the next dream.”

Ingvar Kamprad

Company: IKEA

“If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the IKEA employees.”

Michael Dell

Company: DELL Computers“Twenty years and $40 billion. They seem like good round numbers.”

Warren Buffett

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Representing the New Zealand Gurus:

Stephen Tindall

Company: The Warehouse

“In my view it’s not the leader that is the most important part of the business. It’s the team. We’ve always had a strong team culture here.”

Sam Morgan

Company: TradeMe

“One of the things we have done well is to hire really good people. If you were in charge of a company of that size and taking all the stress, then you would be doing something really wrong.”

Mike Pero

Company: Mike Pero Mortgages

“Success is not a science, you don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar – it’s based upon commitment and desires!”

Representing the Historical Gurus

Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)

Company: Ford Motor Company

“There is no man that cannot do more than he thinks he can.”

John D Rockefeller (1839 – 1937)

Company: Standard Oil

“Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.”

Meyer Amschel Rothschild (1744 – 1812)

Company: Rothschild Family

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”

Walt Disney (1901 – 1966)

Company: The Walt Disney Company

“If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started by a mouse.”

Ray Kroc (1902 – 1984)

Company: McDonalds

“The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.”

By: Joel

Source: Addicted 2 Success

3 Biggest Excuses of Wanna-Be Leaders

It's time to stop making a excuses. If you want to be a leader, there's nothing holding you back.

This is a familiar dynamic: After facilitating a coaching or training session, or after speaking at a conference, two groups of people form around the speaker in concentric circles. The first, inner group are leaders who want to know more. The second, outer group, hanging back a little meekly are the wanna-be leaders. 

The conversations I have with both groups are always fascinating. It's why I do what I do, after all. But interestingly, it's the conversations with the second group, the not-yet leaders, that most often follow the same pattern.

You'd think that people who want to be leaders (but aren't yet), would each be in that position for highly individual and therefore unpredictable reasons. But mostly I hear people share the same three reasons over and over again, as to why they haven't yet started leading:

1. I'm not in a leadership position. The most common reason wanna-be leaders give for not actually being a leader, is that they're not yet in a leadership position, which is usually defined (in their mind, at least) as having a team to lead, people to delegate to, or at least having some seniority in their organization.

Here's the thing: Leaders aren't created upon arrival in a position. Leaders arerecognized as such, and then placed in positions of leadership.

If you're truly intent on being a leader, then that's precisely what you need to do: Lead. Now. From where you are. And if you can't take the CEO position and lead the organization--even if you can't even take a managerial position and lead the accounts payable department--there are a hundred other ways you can lead.

Find ways to do what you do, better. Step in when others are uncertain. Be generous and unsparing with your ideas, (thought-through) opinions and time. Take risks. Be creative and flexible. Above all, add value. And do it now, from where you are.

2. I need someone's permission. This excuse comes in many varieties. Sometimes it's professional ("I don't have the letters after my name that  my peer group have, so they won't respect my leadership"); sometimes it's organizational ("My boss  / my job description / my daily activities aren't explicit about me being a leader, so I'll look presumptuous if I start"), and sometimes it's personal ("I'm only [some age] / I've never [accomplished some goal] / I didn't [go to some school / get some degree]").

Look, to get started as a leader, the only person you need permission from is you. 

Yes, after you've begun to lead, you will need other people's permission, in the form of them accepting your leadership. And maybe you'll suck at it and your leadership career will be short-lived. But you'll never know until you start, and the only person who can fire the starting gun on your leadership is…you.

3. I have this role model... / I can't find a role model... One of the most debilitating barriers to starting to lead is also one that's filled with irony--the chicken-in-a-headlight paralysis that can arise from either having a leadership role model who is frighteningly intimidating--or from having no role model at all.

As with the other excuses above (yes, I've used them both in the past, many times), I know whereof I speak: My first professional mentor happened to be one of the most brilliant members of my (then) profession of his generation. And if I'd waited to come out of his shadow, I'd still be a rookie CPA making coffee for my colleagues.

Then 30 years ago when I decided to leave the accounting profession to become a serial entrepreneur, I experienced what it's like to strike out into an occupation bereft of role models (this was long before the rise of the start-up zeitgeist, and serial entrepreneurs in the UK--where I then lived--were few and far between). The only way to get started was...to get started.

So if you're serious about starting your leadership career, there's one thing that you need to decide, today: Be your own role model.

By: Les McKeown

Source: Inc.

Just Say No to Micromanaging

Micromanagement could have a huge long- and short-term negative impact on your ability to be effective as a manager.

Micromanagement. It may seem like a little thing that's isolated to a few managers, or staff in your company, but the effects of micromanagement could have a huge long- and short-term negative impact on your ability to be effective as a manager, and your ability to achieve or exceed your company's goals. Take a second to think about these questions:

    Do you tell your employees what to do?
    Do you oversee all aspects of their projects?
    Do you direct rather than empower?
    Do spend more time on day-to-day tasks vs the growth of your company?

If you answered yes, to one or more of these questions, you may just be a micromanager, so I'll ask another question... at what cost?

What You Want

You want things done a certain way. The "right" way, and maybe even your way. I get it. But, when you tell employees exactly what you want, how you want it and when you want it, you're basically just telling them to execute. And, unless they don't enjoy thinking very much, they won't be satisfied for long.

The bigger question to ask yourself, or that micromanager you've got is, "can you articulate what you want the outcome to be, but let your employee chart how they get there?" Letting them become part of the journey can pay off big-time because, not only will they feel more valued, but you may actually get a better end product because you'll have more people generating ideas and solutions. Even though you're the boss, you may not always have all the best answers.

What Your Employees Want

So we know you want things done and you want them done a certain way. As I discussed, allowing employees to be a part of the journey can have a far-reaching positive impact because we know employees don't just come to work for a paycheck. They come for so much more including a sense of belonging and having a purpose, being productive, learning and contributing to a common or shared goal, having engagement and maybe even some recognition.

When you do all the thinking for them, you cut their legs out from under them, possibly robbing them of their creativity, ability to problem solve, their trust and ability to be flexible.

Just Say No to Micromanaging

The good news is, you can start to shift the habit of micromanaging by identifying why you or a manager does it, and make a few easy changes.

1. Identify Why

Do you have a new team that you don't know well, haven't established trust and confidence in? Do you have folks who don't carry through, or miss deadlines? Identifying the why will help you address the root cause and take action to help curb feelings of distrust, lack of confidence or other things you have identified.

2. Accountability With a Capital A

If you want your team be accountable, then make sure you work this into SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-sensitive ) goals for them that are realistic. If people aren't held accountable, they may never know they aren't meeting your expectations. At my online marketing company VerticalResponse, we work off of periodical reviews to make sure that what we want for our business is what our teams know they need to do. It's pretty cut and dry.

3. Let Go

Knowing when to step back and give your team the space they need to explore a problem, brainstorm, come up with solutions and execute on them is at the very core of every good manager. If you overstep your boundaries, give your team the right to give you feedback so you know how much rope to give them and respect when they tell you to scram. When I'm in a meeting and a decision needs to be made, many times the team will look at me and ask what I think? A lot of times I turn it around on them and say "What do you guys think?" This way they know they have a say.

Have you had to step back and let go? How did your experience play out? I'd love to hear some real-life examples.

By: Janine Popick

Source: Inc.

Entrepreneurial Success Depends On Optimism--And Perfectionism

The following guest post was written by Millie Tadewaldt, co-founder and CEO of CakeStyle, an online personal styling company. In her previous incarnations, she taught herself to code, studied law at Harvard, was a management consultant at BCG, and helped create the Foundry at Sandbox Industries.

I recently gave a new CakeStyle team member two projects: first, create a slide for an investor deck demonstrating our strengths in managing inventory for our business; and second, create a slide for our company meeting explaining how we should improve our inventory management function. The result: confusion.

As an attorney by training (and a natural-born debater), it hadn’t occurred to me that learning to “debate” your own startup can be an acquired skill.  A necessary skill, to be sure, but something that doesn’t come easily for everyone.

Lawyers generally have very little control over which “side” they will end up on, so they have to be prepared to advocate for their client either way.  In law school, we are taught how to see the strengths of both sides of an argument, and even practice arguing both sides.  This has been the most useful skill I transferred from my legal education to my life as an entrepreneur.

There are two lenses that a good entrepreneur needs to learn to use interchangeably, and he/she also needs to learn which lens to use for which audience.  And, as I will explain, I mean “lens” in the sense of true, honest perspective, not in the sense of a slimy defense lawyer trying to get his clearly-guilty client acquitted.

Perfectionism: This is your daily working lens, used to help you motivate your team, receive guidance from your board and mentors, and define your own to-do list.  This is what keeps you up at night.  Startups are all about incremental improvements, and striving for “perfection,” though rarely achieving it.  A good entrepreneur is a perpetual critic.  She sees where improvements can be made (pretty much everywhere!), devises strategies to improve, and then isolates and prioritizes the most impactful ones. In CakeStyle’s case, this means determining how we can improve inventory management by increasing turn, more quickly identifying which SKUs are “dogs” and liquidating them in season, reducing damaged inventory rates and improving our buying function.

Optimism: This is the lens of the pitch, often used for interviews with press, recruiting new employees, getting the team (and yourself) pumped up, and pitching investors. This is what wakes you up in the morning, why you’re always excited about your business, why it’s special, why your customers love you, and how the data proves it.  For CakeStyle, this means showcasing how our inventory management metrics beat retail and ecommerce benchmarks, how strong our team is, and our ability to profitably sell or liquidate literally everything we buy.

Even if seeing both sides at the same time doesn’t come naturally to you, practice looking through each of your lenses and communicating with appropriate measures of perfectionism and optimism depending on your audience.

And, to be clear, the truth must exist in both of these lenses.  You should always be honest with the press, your team, your investors, your board and yourself.  A good entrepreneur should be optimistic and energized about her business (when optimism is warranted), but also able to clearly see where improvements should be made next.  And improvements are always warranted.

By: Millie Tadewaldt

Source: Forbes