The Art of Leadership

By: Gina Kellogg-Gardner, MAOL

Art is infinite. An artist never reaches a point of complete mastery. The skill of an artist is in constant development; evolving and transforming, adapting to the moment and becoming fluently versatile in order to experience or achieve a brilliantly authentic outcome.

Leadership is art. Leadership, like all arts, takes patience, practice and persistence. The art of leadership is exhibited by modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, fostering an environment of innovation, guiding others toward their own excellence and encouraging the celebration of success. To new leaders these artful behaviors can seem daunting and vague. However, the art of leadership can be taught to new leaders by helping them build five key fundamental skills early in their careers that will allow them to successfully adapt and become versatile amongst any given challenge. Take time now to teach new leaders foundational skills, and watch them achieve and succeed beyond unthinkable limits.

Five Foundational Leadership Skills:

1. Determine values: Help new leaders identify what they stand for personally and professionally. Facilitate them through a discussion that will guide them toward articulating their top three values. New leaders need to first understand who they are, and what they personal stand for, before they can effectively model the way.
   
   
2. Articulate vision: Teach new leaders how to describe the future. A new leader needs to learn first how to identify where they are headed, and secondly be able to describe their vision clearly and with conviction in
   order to inspire other
   
   
3. Seek ways to foster personal growth: Encourage new leaders to seek out ways to personally grow. Hold them accountable to following through on continuous learning opportunities. Advancing their education or reading the latest leadership books, choices are limitless.
   
   
4. Learn to partner: Teach new leaders how to identify the strengths of others, and how to align themselves with those who have talents they themselves may not have. Learning to partner fosters collaboration and respect, and diminishes the desire for silos.
   
   
5. Share wins: Ask new leaders to frequently share their successes with others. Meetings, emails or networking sites are great avenues new leaders can use to communicate personal or team wins. Professionally sharing wins helps to highlight the strengths of new leaders and builds confidence!

Industry News - Keeping up with it

By: Karen Rulifson

I just wanted to share a FREE and easy way to stay in touch with industry news and trends...SmartBrief.com. It's a resource that I came across about a year ago that I really appreciate! Based on my preferences, I receive regular emails that provide me with the latest articles and topics of my industry. It takes away the time and hassle of me having to google for articles, instead it comes right to my inbox. I know...it may sound like I'm getting paid to advertise for SmartBrief. I'm not. As SmartBrief states on its website: "SmartBrief publishes industry-specific email newsletters in partnership with leading trade associations, professional societies and corporations. It summarizes from the days most important industry headlines, handpicked from hundreds of newspapers and trade publications - straight to your email inbox as industry newsletters." The industries you can choose from span from healthcare to advertising, business, non-profit, retail, technology and many others. I registered for three newsletters: 1) National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), 2) Leadership and 3) Workforce. If one of your goals this year is to increase your knowledge about what's happening in your industry, SmartBrief will be a win for you. The website to sign up is: www.smartbrief.com/signup/index.jsp

Tips for Today's Leaders

A new year. A recession and a new set of workplace challenges. Anxious employees. Needed is a new set of behaviors from leaders.

Out are the days of leading from the top and ordering the team to follow your ideas. Today's employees need and value collaboration, diverse ideas, providing input and inspiring and challenging assignments. In a recent Harvard Business Publishing article, "10 Mantras for Emerging Leaders in '09," Vineet Nayar lists guidelines for leaders. What especially resonated with me are the following:

• Accountability - Now more than ever, leaders need to model the way and walk the talk. They need to say what they mean, be transparent and follow through. This builds trust amongst the team.
  
• Lead from the front line - Know what's going on, understand the pain points of the employees and customers. This will help you make better decisions.
  
• Collaborate and ask questions - Utilize the talented team you have, gain additional ideas and insight, challenge processes. This will lead to innovation.
  
• Be nimble - Now more than ever, change is a constant. To be and stay competitive, one must adapt and be a leader of change.
  
• Be positive - People look to you for inspiration and motivation. Be the positive force that keeps them excited about the vision and purpose of what they do everyday.

Read the entire article by clicking here.

Karen Rulifson

Announcing Monarch Leadership's Exclusive Partnership with Limelight Generations

Monarch Leadership is proud to announce our exclusive partnership with Limelight Generations, one of the only generational companies in the United States focused on recruiting, retaining, and marketing to generations X, Y, and Z.

Sarah Sladek founded Limelight Generations in 2002. As an Xer herself, Sarah started researching the absence of younger generations in membership associations and businesses. She gives presentations and provides training and consulting on the topic to organizations nationwide.

Sarah is also the author of two X, Y and Z generational books --Rock Stars Incorporated: Hiring the High-Performance, High-Maintenance Hotshots Half Your Age (2008) and The New Recruit: What Your Association Needs to Know About X, Y, & Z (2007).

In 2009 Monarch Leadership will be partnering closely with Sarah in Limelight Generations' launch of XYZ University, the first web-based learning and networking community for membership associations focused on the generational topic, as well as RockStars@Work, the first generation-themed business conference and awards program in the United States.

Gina Kellogg-Gardner

Can you teach passion?

I was recently asked by a business colleague if I believe passion can be taught. I responded with a confident Yes. I believe we all have passion. Our passion may look different, feel different and transpire into the world differently; but I do believe someone can learn how to tap into their passion. It's not passion that's being taught, it's teaching people how to tap into their passion...

United States businesses have been built on an autocratic system that attempts to mold people to fit into the needs of the business. Based on this approach, we have grown up hearing about all the things we need to "improve" on, which of our "opportunity areas" are getting in our way of being successful and which of our "behaviors" need to be addressed in order for us to live the values of our workplace. A great percentage of people in our country feel as though their passion is growing further and further away from their day-to-day work activity. They feel their passion is being shadowed by the expectations of their employers. Ironically, employers then question why their customer service satisfaction is low, why quality is struggling or why revenue goals are not being met. Teach employees how to unleash their passion and watch the business sore!

Leaders can teach passion by helping their employees discover what their passion is. Teaching is simply about helping others discover something new. How? Leaders need to ask their employees what's important to them, what part of the work do they find most satisfying, what are their personal goals and values, what is their vision? Begin designing jobs that incorporate each person's passion, or simply let employees take on tasks that allow them to use their passion. Move the business forward by teaching employees how to discover their passion, and by supporting their ideas on how to actively live their passion in the workplace. It's a win win!

Gina Kellogg-Gardner

A Culture of Empowering Others

A critical factor for successful leadership is in empowering others (and then trusting them). Practicing this concept isn't necessarily easy, but it goes a long way in creating a culture where people want to work and are engaged. And ultimately, this practice develops more talent in the organization, which increases overall performance.

As a side note, some people argue that you first need the "right people on the bus," a quote that author Jim Collins created, before you empower them with projects or decisions. Click here to find a great article about this topic.

Back to empowering others... a success story is with the company, Pixar. Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar, has been instrumental in creating a culture of empowering others to create great results. I recently read an article, "Pixar's Collective Genius," written by Steve Prokesch, Harvard Business Review. He starts out the article by stating, "Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull exemplifies the greatest form of leadership: empowering others to achieve the extraordinary."

Steve had the opportunity to meet Ed Catmull while working with him regarding a HBR article and said that Mr. Catmull "describes the architecture of Pixar's collective genius--a community where people at all levels support one another." Steve continues to share that "the results speak for themselves: Beginning with Toy Story in 1995 and ending with WALL•E this summer, Pixar has produced nine blockbuster computer-animated films in a row."

Mr. Catmull's leadership qualities that enable a culture of collective genius include:

• Redefining the vision - Creating a vision that will last past the current executive team.
  
• Delegating power - Giving directors tremendous authority. Mr. Catmull and his executive team set budgetary and timeline boundaries, and then the directors and their teams are left alone. When it's time to review progress on a project, the senior executive team's advice is just that - advice - just like everyone else's.
  
• Fighting success syndrome - Realizing that, even with Pixar's success, there are still improvements to make and not everything is figured out.

This article hit home with me and displays a great example of a company who is finding success in empowering its employees. To read the full article and have access to a podcast, click here.

Karen Rulifson

Employee Engagement & Generation Y

Since Gina probably won't blog about this accomplishment, I will do it for her.

After spending months researching the link between employee engagement and leveraging the Millennial Generation (or Gen Y), Gina recently presented her findings at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN. She also just published an article about the topic in Connections, the official magazine for the Professional BusinessWomen of California. You can access the magazine here (the article is on page nine, next to an article written by Lisa Orrell, a Millennial and Generation Relations Expert).

Her findings show that organizations must support engagement in areas such as:

• Leadership development
• Job design
• Career culture
• Engagement survey
• Online action planning

Also, she says that the relationship between employee engagement and an organization's success in leveraging Generation Y is driven by leadership. With Gen Y having the largest employment share by 2011, leadership's ability to engage and leverage this new generations is critical to give organizations the competitive advantage.

I encourage you to read the whole article, and if you have questions about it or want more details, just let us know.

And as a side note, I thought you might enjoy this youtube video about Generation Y. Click here to view it.

Have a good one!

Karen Rulifson