Archive for Leadership Development
How to Optimize Your Team-based Learning & Development
Posted by: | CommentsEd Oakley follows up his conversation about how much more effective team-based learning is compared to trying to learn on our own with an important component of successful team-based learning.
This video addresses the importance of very deliberately focusing the team effort on what the greatest opportunity is – and how to determine that opportunity.
Please share your comments below!
Ed Oakley & the Enlightened Leadership team
Transcription
Hi, it’s Ed Oakley. In my last video, I discussed both the importance of developing and mastering your leadership skills – especially right now with all the changes and everything going on with the economy – and doing so as a team. If you haven’t seen that video, I encourage you to watch it – it might even be better if you watched that one first, as this video builds on the learnings of that first one. You’ll find the link just beneath the video.
Today, I want to talk about an important aspect of team-based learning Read More→
Problems with leadership development processes…
Posted by: | CommentsDeveloping your leadership skills is critical to your ongoing success and prosperity, so it is important that you understand some significant problems/challenges/issues with leadership development processes. After 23 years in the leadership development business, we are just realizing the impact of some of the issues.
It is also important that you begin to consider solutions for you and your organization. Feel free to share the video with your colleagues, and please leave your comments below:
Please share your perspectives below!
To the total health of you and your team,
Ed Oakley and the Enlightened Leadership team
TRANSCRIPTION
Hi it’s Ed Oakley. We’ve discovered some significant problems with leadership development Read More→
Distinguish Yourself or “Perish!”
Posted by: | CommentsTo thrive in these economic times, it is critical to Distinguish Yourself. Listen to Ed Oakley’s perspective in this brief 4+minute video.
What are your thoughts about this? Please comment below.
The Enlightened Leadership Team
Employee Engagement – Business Leadership Development
Posted by: | CommentsEmployee Engagement might be even more important this year. Ed Oakley discusses why and invites you into the conversation:
Employee Engagement practices can be quite important in your leadership skill development. Please share your thoughts about what is important to you in keeping YOU engaged. Share your disappointments and your gratitude below (comments).
Our best,
The Enlightened Leadership Team
What are your Biggest Challenges?
Posted by: | CommentsToday I sent out a survey which asks you to share your
toughest challenges with us. You can see the survey HERE.
Please help me improve on what I am doing by taking a few minutes
to answer the questions. I will be choosing a few each week and
posting my feedback here on the blog. The responses we get will
aid me in creating better content for you in the coming weeks and
months!
If you are visiting us for the first time, please leave your name
and email to the right and we will gladly send you
the first few chapters to my book, Leadership Made Simple. You
will read about:
- An introduction to the Framework for Leadership™
- The “Hard” part (management) vs. the “Soft” part (leadership)
- List of challenges you may relate to
- Measurable successes
- Right questions (Effective Questions™)
- Forward Focus vs. backward focus
Thanks for reading and check back with us later this week when
I answer the question you have about your biggest challenges.
Ed
PS: I’m just starting to get the hang of Twitter and Facebook.
You can follow me here
A System for the Soft Side of Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsSitting beside a Cisco Systems manager on the way to Sao Paolo,
Brazil recently reminded me how our Enlightened Leadership work fits
so well for people who are highly educated in a focused area. I’m
talking about areas of formal or informal education like science,
medicine, manufacturing, engineering, business and others during
which process they probably did NOT learn much about bringing out
the best in people!
These bright, talented people have systems and processes for
accomplishing many aspects of their work, Read More→
In this Personal Leadership Series, Jonette Crowley, author and principle of Enlightened Leadership Solutions, presents five tools to assist us in flying, rather than falling during critical times—times of chaos, confusion and conflict.
Following is Tool Number 5.
Number Five is Contribution. As you know, when you do something for someone else, it gets you out of your mess. The trouble is that when people perceive that times are hard, they stop doing for other people. They stop doing things with an open heart. They stop giving to charities. They stop contributing. Contribution spreads joy, and joy goes in all directions. If you’re worried, give. If you’re scared, do. If you’re paralyzed, act. If you like to sing, sing. Contribute, whatever it is. Contribute.
Critical times are only as critical as you think, and flying is much more fun than falling. Do you see how close they are, really? Falling and flying – neither of them have anything to stand on; both of them happen in mid air, both of them ultimately end on the ground. What’s the difference between falling and flying? Are you setting the direction or is gravity? That’s the difference. In flying you set the direction and because of it gravity waits. If you are not setting the direction in your life, gravity takes over.
Let’s talk about something else to help you be a better person: that is the whole idea of waiting. Sometimes waiting is perfect because the time isn’t now. Sometimes you wait for something different to come and save you. You wait for your kids to leave home. You wait for enough money for something. Please let waiting be your friend. Waiting is a wonderful thing when used correctly. If you want to do something, and there’s no flow, the answer isn’t to push and worry. It’s to look with your focus, your intuition, your self, and ask “Where is that flow?” There is always flow. Find it. It may not be going in the direction you thought it should. Finding the flow will help you wait when you should wait and act when you should act.
There are really two kinds of waiting. There is a passive waiting; waiting for someone else to do something. Passive waiting is dangerous because you’ve given up your energy, power and your initiative. Remember the difference between flying and falling? When you’re not actively setting the direction gravity takes over. Passive waiting is just asking for gravity to bring you to the ground. Active waiting is where waiting is a choice, not an excuse. Active waiting is using the stillness of life to easily get what you want. When you are blocked in something in your life, really look and see if you are somehow passively waiting or actively waiting.
So enjoy these times and all times!
What are your thoughts on THIS tool? Please leave your comments below.
Jonette Crowley and the Enlightened Leadership Team
In this Personal Leadership Series, Jonette Crowley, author and principle of Enlightened Leadership Solutions, presents five tools to assist us in flying, rather than falling during critical times—times of chaos, confusion and conflict.
Following is Tool Number 4.
Number four is Enjoy the heck out of it! Take the risk, trust yourself, have a smile on your face and see where the roller coaster takes you. Sometimes when you are facing critical times the first thing you lose is your good humor. You need joy, humor! None of the other tools, Self Acceptance, Focus, Risk Taking mean anything if you’re not enjoying it. Pure joy, silly joy, humor!! One thing people notice about the Dali Lama is that he smiles and laughs. The most important thing is not that he’s a spiritual leader; the most important thing is that he is a man of light. People of light take themselves lightly. Humor is their number one interaction with themselves and the world. If there’s a leader who is somber, dry, and very serious find another mentor. Do not be oppressed by all the things you are doing for others. If you’re not enjoying it, stop. Joy.
This isn’t really a step, but I invite you to stop dramatizing what is so. What is so is just what is so. When we dramatize the good or the bad, we take the truth away from it. So, a hint to make all of these tools for critical times work is to see how much you’re addicted to drama and how it actually is a false sense of joy. It isn’t joyful, it is hollow. It takes you from authenticity and reality.
What are your thoughts on THIS tool? Please leave your comments below.
Jonette Crowley and the Enlightened Leadership Team
In this Personal Leadership Series, Jonette Crowley, author and principle of Enlightened Leadership Solutions, presents five tools to assist us in flying, rather than falling during critical times—times of chaos, confusion and conflict.
Following is Tool Number 3.
Number three is Take Risks. Be that eagle that jumps off the cliff. A risk is only a risk before you do it. Haven’t you been in a situation that seems risky – you’re riding a roller coaster; the worst part of the ride is the part up that first hill. Once you go down, that’s the best part because you’re surrendering to gravity. Risk taking is doing things differently than you’ve done them before, treating people differently than you’ve been treated, trying something you don’t have the recipe for. What is the most dangerous thing in critical times? It is approaching the new horizon in the old vehicle. You don’t get a new vehicle unless you’re willing to change. Change is probably the hardest thing to do in critical times, but risk taking and change are the most important tools. Decide what your tolerance is for change. If you’re comfortable with big change, go for it. If you’re not comfortable with a big change, cut it up and make small changes. If you’re afraid of a big risk, cut it in half and take half of a big risk. Excuses are not acceptable. Excuses are a poor man’s reason for staying poor. Excuses are a poor soul’s reason for staying weak. Excuses are an adolescent’s reason for blaming the rest of the world. Take Risks, no excuses.
What are your thoughts on THIS tool? Please leave your comments below.
Jonette Crowley and the Enlightened Leadership Team
In this Personal Leadership Series, Jonette Crowley, author and principle of Enlightened Leadership Solutions, presents five tools to assist us in flying, rather than falling during critical times—times of chaos, confusion and conflict.
Following is Tool Number 2.
Number two is Focus. If you continue to focus on all the things that you think are going wrong, or worse, the things that might go wrong, you will destroy any sense of peace you’ve managed to attain. You are in charge of your focus. A misguided focus is a misguided life. If you focus on contribution, abundance, self-acceptance, acceptance of others, love and gratitude, you will draw those things to you. As you focus on what might go wrong, what has gone wrong, who’s elected and who isn’t… your focus is like your nose. You go where your nose goes. You go where your focus is. Number one is Self Acceptance because you have to have a self before you can focus. Choose your focus or else it will be chosen for you. If you don’t choose your focus it’s not likely to be where you want it to be. It’s likely to go to the lowest common denominator. It goes to the sludge at the bottom of the pond. It is vital that you realize that you choose your focus. Focus shouldn’t be democratic. 90% of people are generally focused on all that’s going wrong. Don’t go with the majority on this.
What are your thoughts on THIS tool? Please leave your comments below.
Jonette Crowley and the Enlightened Leadership Team
