What traits do today’s prominent female leaders share? Let’s take a look:  

• Effective role models: A recent CNN opinion piece about how to have more women like Sheryl Sandberg concludes that it is the prominence of such women that inspires others to be like them: “We can create more Sandbergs by surrounding ourselves with confident, outspoken women.” Sandberg herself actively works to encourage others by running a monthly salon with talks by inspirational women. The more role models we have across all industries, the more likely it is that the female leaders of the future will be inspired.
  
  
• Mentoring—at all levels: If you can identify opportunities and encourage women early on then they will be able to fulfill their potential throughout their careers. Some of the most prominent women had great mentors—and they are often now working as mentors to the next generation themselves.
  
  

• Confidence: Confidence can mean a world of difference between a woman who is able to live her dreams and one who is not—so often a talented woman is held back through lack of confidence. The former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher was famous for her confidence and iron will—and for her slogan “The lady’s not for turning.” In an article for the MBA@UNC, media pioneer Arianna Huffington cites lack of confidence as “a killer to success for women. In order to advance their careers, women need to be comfortable seeing themselves as qualified leaders and risk takers.”

Keep reading: 7 shared traits that unite women in power

6 Ways To Be A More Courageous Leader

Leadership expert Brad Lomenick offers some simple tips that will help you make tough decisions with confidence.

I have great respect for professional baseball players; they are anything but wimpy. To stand in front of home plate with a ball heading toward your head at 95 miles per hour with nothing but a piece of wood to bat it away takes guts.

Life and leadership are a lot like baseball. Even the best batters strike out sometimes. But a true athlete, and courageous leaders, can never run away from the pitch.

As a leader, you sit atop the mountain. You have no choice but to face the slopes. You can lean back, coast, and play it safe, snowplowing your way painfully back and forth across the mountain, or you can point your skis down the hill, nose over the tips, and dominate the run. Being a courageous leader requires you to push beyond the norm, be willing to take risks and quit being a wimp.

Courage is not waiting for your fear to go away; it is confronting your fear head-on.

Through working with young leaders around the nation, I have found six essentials that can help build a culture of courage in an organization:

1. Set scary standards. 

Give your people a goal that scares them, and you’ll produce leaders who know what it means to overcome fear.

2. Allow for failure.

The road to success is many times paved through multiple failures. Allow for and even encourage your team to fail as they attempt to succeed.

3. Make decisions.

Don’t let ideas, strategy, communication, and important organizational markers sit idly by on the side without saying yes or no. Leaders are decision makers, and must do it constantly.

4. Reward innovation.

Rewarding innovation will challenge your team to grow in their roles.

5. Pursue the right opportunities. 

Aggressively pursue a few things that make sense. Say no to things that don’t—even if it means saying no more often than you’re comfortable.

6. Learn to delegate.

This is one of the most courageous things a leader can do. Entrusting others with important tasks requires letting go and relinquishing control.

If you want your team to be courageous, give them the chance to lead. Early and often.

The good news is that unlike some leadership traits, courage is not inborn; it’s learned. The natural response is to run from what frightens us, but life’s greatest leaps occur when we resist this impulse.

Here’s the full story.

What is one way that you can be more courageous today?

Why Channeling Your Inner Weirdo Helps You Get Ahead At Work

Ogilvy & Mather exec John Manly on workplace success - “Let your freak flag fly.”

I have succeeded at five different ad agencies over the course of nearly two decades by sticking to one simple rule:

Be a freakin’ weirdo.

Weird, you question? Yes, weird. Weird is what fuels individuals in the most prolific agencies to remain the vanguards of new ideas. And despite the tendency to outfit agency halls with creative stimuli, channeling our “inner weirdo” is not a natural tendency simply instigated by odd-shaped chairs or brainstorming books. Weirdness—uncovering it, embracing it, practicing it—is one of the most difficult, yet most integral, components to success within the halls of any agency.

“Being weird, I’ve come to realize, is only weird if you don’t use it to better yourself and those around you. Weird is the spark in innovation that separates the good from the great. Weird is the muscle behind adaptability and progress. Weird makes us broader thinkers, stronger leaders, and more adventurous co-conspirators.”

Read the rest here.

David Morken, CEO of Bandwidth.com on achieving the impossible:

1. Come up with an impossible idea … don’t give up!

2. Highlight the barriers.

3. Brainstorm them away.

For more motivation read the full story here.

fastcodesign:

Forget The Mission Statement. What’s Your Mission Question?

WARREN BERGER TAPS SOME OF THE MOST POWERFUL CEOS IN THE COUNTRY TO REVEAL THE QUESTIONS THAT WILL KEEP ANY COMPANY ON TRACK.

Most companies, of course, articulate their missions by way of formal “statements.” But often they’re banal pronouncements (We save people money so they can live better. —WalMart) or debatable assertions (Yahoo! is the premier digital media company) that don’t offer much help in trying to gauge whether a company is actually living up to a larger goal or purpose.

Questions, on the other hand, can provide a reality check on whether or not a business is staying true to what it stands for and aims to achieve. So herewith, derived from interviews for my forthcoming book, A More Beautiful Question, are thoughts from a couple of top CEOs (Panera Bread’s Ron Shaich and Patagonia’s Casey Sheahan) and a trio of leading business thinkers/consultants (the Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen, Peer Insight’s Tim Ogilvie, and SY Partners’ Keith Yamashita). The following five “mission questions” are designed to keep a business focused on what matters most.

1. WHY ARE WE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

2. WHAT DOES THE WORLD NEED MOST…THAT WE ARE UNIQUELY ABLE TO PROVIDE?

3. WHAT ARE WE WILLING TO SACRIFICE?

4. WHAT MATTERS MORE THAN MONEY?

5. ARE WE ALL ON THIS MISSION TOGETHER?

Find out what top CEO’s said about these questions here.

How Arianna Huffington Defines Success

At the Wall Street Journal, Arianna Huffington writes that Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In has unleashed a range of conversations—including what world, exactly, is being leaned into.

To Huffington, we’re failing to understand the nature of success.

“This is a great moment…to acknowledge that the current male-dominated model of success isn’t working for women,” she writes, “and it’s not working for men, either.”

What’s that world look like?

Arianna Huffington

Pretty tightly wound. Huffington notes that self-reported stress has gone up for both sexes in the past 30 years—18 percent for women, 25 percent for men. A recent Harvard Medical School study estimated that U.S. companies lose $63.2 billion to sleep deprivation every year. And women, Huffington notes, are more likely to feel stressed at work.

With our current “time macho” culture, we’ve got stressed-out leaders in politics, business, and media making awful decisions.

“What they lack is not smarts but wisdom,” she says. “And it’s much harder to tap into your wisdom, recognizing the icebergs before they hit the Titanic—a big part of leadership—when you’re running on empty.”

Learning how to lean back

Huffington calls upon a lovely French phrase: reculer pour mieux sauter, which loosely translates as lean back to jump higher. Or in other words,relax and you’ll be more productive.

For Huffington, what’s missing is measurement:

We need a third metric, based on our well-being, our health, our ability to unplug and recharge and renew ourselves, and to find joy in both our job and the rest of our life. Ultimately, success is not about money or position, but about living the life you want, not just the life you settle for.

Who are the early adopters?

The happiest companies, who, by way, are making more money. Examples: Google has invested in its People Operations, General Mills practices mindfulness, and Square has adirector of experience.

And as Leslie Perlow notes, workaholics aren’t addicted to work—they’re need addicted to validation. So let’s change the validation structure.

Huffington on Sandberg: To Lean In, First Lean Back

[Image by Flickr user Penn State/Patrick Mansell]

Order On The Court: Leadership Lessons From Pickup Basketball

Pickup basketball—like business—requires a few simple ground rules if you’re going to have a good game. A few tips from a seasoned baller and leadership expert Craig Chappelow.

Whether March comes in like a lion or a lamb, there’s always madness of the basketball variety. I suppose there are some great leadership stories playing out right now among the high-profile NCAA college coaches. But I believe in taking leadership lessons where you can—and I have learned a lot of mine from the local hardwood. There is a lunchtime pickup basketball game that has been going strong for 30 years. Three days a week a group of taped-up and liniment-covered former jocks and non-athletes get together in a local college gym. These self-titled Geezers go at it like they are playing for a spot in the Final Four.

There are two things that make it difficult to use basketball as a strategy to stay in shape. The first is finding a dependable game—somewhere where you can count on enough players showing up day in and day out. The second thing: finding a compatible playing style that makes the workout competitive and enjoyable.

That’s why I feel lucky to have found the Geezer game. If I’m not traveling or in a can’t-miss meeting, I’m there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The players range in age from mid-30s to Old Steve (to differentiate him from the two other Steves that play) who just turned 73. Players come and go. Claire, our longest-term female player, just retired. Some move away, others get hurt and stop playing. New players show up, and the cycle goes on. What is it about this group that has allowed it to not only function for 30 years, but to thrive? Let’s frame it in business terms:

Focus on the mission. Our mission statement, if we had some reason to write one, would be: “Get exercise.” We all have day jobs and depend on being able to show up, get into a game quickly, get a workout, then shower and get back to work before anyone notices we were gone. That means we don’t waste time. We have a highly organized system of rotating players into games as they arrive and rotating on and off courts so that no one waits for more than five minutes to play. On-court chitchat and small talk is frowned upon. Play ball.

Designate a leader. But if things are working well, stay out of the way. The Geezer Commissioner is a guy named Richie, a college professor and, on a good day, a deadly three-point shooter. He keeps things organized, communicates quickly with everyone if there is something we need to know between playing days, and every so often, breaks up an on-court argument.

Find the right fit. (And I don’t mean physically. There are enough spare tires in this game to outfit a tractor trailer.) What I mean is fitting in. Understand the mission and get behind it or go play somewhere else. The Geezer game isn’t for everyone. If you don’t play defense, never pass the ball, and berate others for making mistakes, you might fit in the NBA, but not this game.

Have some rules. Not a lot, but enforce the ones you have. The Geezer rules are pretty simple. Call your own fouls, no junk-talking, and perhaps the most important rule of all—honor the call. You don’t have to agree with it if someone calls a foul on you for hacking him on the shot, but don’t argue or complain, because the guy you are guarding probably just ran back down court and scored while you were whining. Arguments just get in the way of the mission, because they take time.

Confront problems. Let the group work it out first. We usually do. On the rare occasion Richie needs to step in he does it calmly and allows players to save face. Usually it just means switching defensive assignments so the problem doesn’t continue. Richie doesn’t try to mediate between the players or reach a resolution in the moment. That would take up valuable time and detract from the mission.

Leave it on the court. Whatever happens on the court that day, for better or worse, gets left between the black lines when you walk off. Arguments don’t continue into the locker room—unless they are political debates or good-natured ribbing about who launched the worst air ball.

If you manage groups, you could do worse than take a few tips from the Geezers. Just don’t forget the liniment, and don’t let Old Steve post you up low. He has a killer hook shot.

[Image by Flickr user Cirox]

The 4 Steps To Building A Successful Social Movement

Whether you want to build a school in Africa or start a consulting business, there are four key steps to making it happen (and all of them involve getting the rest of the world to care).

People who study social movements like the French Revolution, women’s rights, and the Arab Spring, show that successful movements follow a predictable pattern:

1. A community forms around a common goal
2. The community mobilizes resources
3. The community finds solutions (what I call “fourth options”)
4. The movement is accepted by (or actually replaces) the establishment

If you understand this pattern and build your project or career or business with this pattern in mind you have a greater chance of success. 

Author and innovation expert Kaihan Krippendorff elaborates here. 

[Image: Flickr user Kyle May]

For Happier Employees, Learn To Give More Gratitude Than “Thx”

We all know happier companies make more money—and nothing makes for happier employees than learning how to show real gratitude for what they do. Here are some pointers to get you started today.

How to really say thank you

Goulston lays out three steps for getting good at giving gratitude: 

1. Be precise: Thank the person specifically for their exceptional actions: Tell them what they’re doing awesome.
2. Acknowledge the effort: Note the personal cost of their getting it done. If they work through the weekend, appreciate the social and family costs.
3. Share your stakeholdership: Make a point of how their great work helps your work, show how you’re in this together.

Developing a sense of how to show gratitude is a leadership key—one that can help you (and your employees) reach their potential.

Here’s the full story. Want more? 

How To Give A Meaningful “Thank You”