Anger is actually a cover-up for fear, hurt, or sadness, but we’re so caught up in our anger that we rarely connect with the soft emotions it tends to belie. Typically when someone makes us angry, we see a direct relationship between our upset and their comment or action.  Yet all of our emotions are driven by beliefs and life experiences, which can explain why some people are oblivious to the same comment that seems to unravel someone else. So what might this suggest? If I have a belief somewhere in the recesses of my mind (whether from my conscious awareness or unawareness) that I do not measure up or may not be good enough, and someone suggests my project is lagging a bit or may not be addressing all the issues, I may find myself feeling angry. However, if that is not a belief residing in my subconscious or past experiences, I may simply ask “How so?” or “Tell me more,” thereby allowing a healthy discussion culminating in my improved project. Point being, once we know our stuff, we can start to manage our anger before we react to comments that end up robbing us of the very credibility we deserve.

This is but one example of the value of self-awareness in leadership and loveship.

Marketing leadership programs, coaching and consulting can be tricky. Ever notice that some people feel ashamed while others feel special to be sent for leadership coaching or development? “Maybe people will think something is wrong with me.” “Maybe they are considering me for a promotion.” It is important that coaches and leadership consultants market in a way that helps remove this stigma.  Years ago I did not always do that. I also strive to avoid the word training with leadership, although that’s a bit harder to do than it sounds.

Leadership development is all about optimizing relationships. So while it is true that leadership is also about being a visionary, if CEOs with a great vision cannot create buy-in, then they have a leadership crisis on their hands regarding their relationships with others.  No matter what the definition of leadership, success ultimately falls back on the quality of the leaders’ relationships within and beyond their corporate setting.

So, whether you are a client or vendor in this industry, how do you describe leadership development or whatever it is that you want to get out of such training (see, it’s hard to avoid that word!)? What key words do you use or look for to show the by-products of leadership services? What will it take for you to know you’ve had a successful leadership development experience?

In my first management role a few decades ago, I had a direct report who on occasion would bully me and others.  In dire need of leadership development, I made some futile attempts to manage this problem behavior before eventually firing him. It took a lot of personal work on my part since that time to get to where I can successfully eliminate bullying behaviors while salvaging the talent for which the person was hired in the first place.

When managers do not intervene bullying behaviors, including those directed at them,  they open the door for other would-be bullies to show them and others the same disrespect. I believe if weak managers as described above were to consider some documented far-reaching consequences of what can happen when bullying behaviors are left unchecked, that may be inspiration enough for them to seek coaching or leadership development.  As a clinical psychologist who has taken over two thousand histories of former clients and patients (Duke Medical Center), I can say that it is a phenomenon that the one bullied at work may end up displacing his or her anger onto innocent others at home, work, or elsewhere.

The point is this: Managers who allow bullies their free reign of terror should consider themselves vicariously responsible for a certain amount of domestic discord or abuse, both subtle and not-so-subtle.  Such “fear-of-confrontation” managers owe it to these ultimate victims to seek leadership development for both themselves and the bully in question.  Most people who engage in what others perceive as bullying behaviors tend to deny such behaviors are mean-spirited. Indeed it is often due to low-level self-awareness or emotional intelligence. It is not an IQ thing; oftentimes the reticent manager is bright but simply doesn’t know a better way to intervene, and the bully himself or herself likewise essentially doesn’t know a better way to motivate others while managing their stress. With thousands of leadership coaches and programs worldwide, abundant resources exist not only to help hone those skills essential to managing bullies but also to help bullies out of their dysfunctional patterns.

This is a quote coined by my nonagenarian mother. I have always regarded it as speaking to the degree of one’s leadership effectiveness. So how do mature leaders (people) differ from those one might otherwise regard as immature? I think we can best see those differentiators during periods of stress or crisis. An anonymous phrase comes to mind regarding how someone mature is likely to behave in the thick of dissention – i.e., “like a clock ticking away in the midst of a thunderstorm”. This conveys remaining calm while methodically moving forward with no alarms unnecessarily going off, and so forth. When two people are behaving maturely in the face of dissention, there is no escalation of the crisis.  Better yet, when two people are calmly focusing on the facts without regard to who is right or wrong but rather simply focusing on what is working or not working, resolution is much more likely to emerge and in a timely manner. All it takes is for one person to get hooked by the other’s melodrama, and suddenly you now have two people spiraling downward creating additional problems and possibly irreparable damage. Maturity is not an easy construct for researchers to measure, but it is so important for leaders who are committed to be their best.

Pricewater Cooper’s survey interview with 1200 company leaders cross 69 countries offered this finding regarding our generation Y work associates. This is a retention and recruiting issue. With baby boomers retiring and Generation X filling their roles, there are multiple opportunities to prepare Generation Y candidates to subsume job responsibilities of the now-vacated Gen X positions. How do you plan to develop this ever-growing proportion of your workforce?

To learn more visit 2011 Global CEO Survey. (You can download the entire article at this link.)

What are the biggest challenges that keep people from unleashing their full human potential?

The biggest challenge is FEAR—False Evidence Appearing Real. Too often we contaminate our current moment or distort our reality from past failures, criticisms, regrets, resentments, and remorse. Other than gravity and mortality, our limitations are pretty much self-imposed.

But what about fears that tend to hang over us like a cloud as we contemplate the economy or unstable job market? Because we tend to attract the very thing we fear, which is related to Jung’s “what you resist persists,” it’s time for a thought transplant. Norman Vincent Peale said you can change your thoughts and change your world. This comes from a man who learned how to consistently hold onto positive thoughts and who massaged thoughts into things. His secret was to act as if his thoughts were true. Therefore, we must be mindful to create positive energy around that which we seek.

Just as some people view the world through rose-colored lenses, others may view the world through depressive lenses. Either way may be a distortion, yet one way is certain to lead to behaviors that confirm victory as opposed to defeat. Interpretation determines the quality of our journey, given the science behind self-fulfilling prophecies. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can or can’t, it’s true.”

America’s Top Intellectual Minds Map Out Successful Business Strategies  

How do busy people become and stay successful? Insight Publishing is pleased to present Dr. Holly Latty-Mann, Ken Blanchard & Deepak Chopra in an exceptional compilation of resourceful people who will tell you how they learned how to be successful. They will share with you their secrets and reveal some remarkable insights on how to set goals in life and how to accomplish those goals.

Dr. Holly Latty-Mann, co-founder of The Leadership Trust®, is a well-established authority in the leadership and “loveship” industries. Armed with two doctorates in psychology with her dissertation on mate selection plus years of global success helping thousands of executives achieve breakthroughs via self-awareness processes, Holly nevertheless claims it is the wisdom from her own intensive personal work and faith journey that gives her an extra edge in her role as change agent.  Holly’s involvement on a grassroots committee for holistic, integrative medicine while interning at Duke Medical Center inspired her to rework this medical model to help people everywhere achieve breakthrough success both at work and at home.    

Want to know more? Want to order a copy? Contact us!

Have you noticed that what motivates your baby boomer work associates may have a sizzling effect on your Generation X and Y team members or those younger than mid-40s? That’s because the leadership style of yesteryear that worked with baby boomers does not likewise invigorate our younger generational cohorts. Because of these generational differences, the leadership industry has undergone a bit of a Zeitgeist within the last two decades, given we are a marketdriven industry and are now working with a preponderance of Generation X and Y work associates representing anyone from the C-Suite throughout all ranks within the organization.

Picture this. You hire a bright, promising Generation X or Y member to your team and find within a very short period of time, this person seems to be losing steam. While there can be multiple variables in play here to potentially explain this nosedive phenomenon, Saratoga Institute reports that 80% of turnover is related to unsatisfactory relationships with the boss. Anytime you have a turnover problem or a boss problem, you have a leadership problem. The cost of an investment in leadership training pales when compared to the cost of attrition. Shop wisely – your goal is to impact relationships to impact bottom line.

If we were to hold all other attributes constant, is it fair to say that happy people are better leaders? Although I consider myself a happy person, I had been considering this topic for a blog earlier this week when I signed up to participate in a study called the Happiness Project. I discovered through an email exchange that the primary investigators, who hold advanced degrees in social psychology and radiology therapy, are interested in leadership, base their studies on scientific findings and use scientific methodology. See http://www.therealsecret.net/The-experiment.html. While the question is probably more complex than it appears at first blush, are happy people really better leaders?

Today Skip Weisman posted an article onto The Leadership Trust Group on LinkedIn regarding how leaders must become comfortable doing the uncomfortable. If you think about it, it’s the same process how people become either heroes or villains – simply repeat the same behavior over and over until it feels natural. We can grow up or down depending on our focus. It all boils down to personal choice.

Click here to visit The Leadership Trust group on LinkedIn to read the full discussion.