Good leadership is all about being aware, not just of yourself, but your environment and those around you. If you do not detect the small things and pay attention to them, the situation can get away from you quickly. You may miss great opportunities, or be surprised at a sudden turn of events that you never saw coming, even though all the signals were there.
Effective teamwork is critical for organizational success, and the key enabler of effective teams is excellent communications.
Are organizations hiring the wrong type of people? Is it that organizations don’t have effective performance management practices designed to weed out or convert the “wrong type” of people? Or could the problem be something else entirely?
It is interesting to consider whether Leadership is more of an Art or more of a Science. Certainly lots has been written about “how” to be an effective leader. Much like the plethora of books on golf, they describe in 6 or 8 or perhaps even 12 steps to the fool proof approach to being a great leader. The problem is that life is just not like that.
The challenge most organizations face is not knowing what to do to create a more engaging culture, one that fully recognizes the gifts of current employees, and acts as a magnet for new talent. The biggest problem with “Engagement” is that we often have no idea which of our actions are deposits in the engagement account and which are withdrawals.
