Lead From the Heart

Hear the word “rebel” & we immediately think of troublemakers & outcasts – people who end up with bad reputations for being non-conformists.

But after a decade of studying rebels (especially rebel leaders), Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino says we’ve got it all wrong.

In her New York Times bestselling book, “Rebel Talent: Why It Pays To Break The Rules At Work & In Life,” Gino says that “rebels prove to be the masters of innovation & reinvention. They’re the ones who change the world for the better with their unconventional outlooks. Instead of clinging to what is safe & familiar –  & falling back on routines & tradition – rebels excel by challenging the status-quo.”

Sharing a remarkable list of real-world examples, Francesca Gino explains why breaking rules enriches every aspect of our lives. And she saves her best insights for leadership – and why it’s irrefutable that the most successful, innovative & admired managers around the world are intentionally “Rebel Leaders.”

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In 2012, Gallup made the startling announcement that employee engagement across the globe was in crisis.  We learned that only 30% of American workers were fully committed in their jobs – and the numbers were even worse in most other countries.

So here we are six years later and we’re left to wonder: “Has engagement gotten any better?” “Did most organizations fully commit to creating more supportive workplaces?” And, “Has the employee engagement metric held up as a true barometer of organizational success?”

Few people on the planet are better prepared to answer these important questions than Gallup’s Dr. Jim Harter. Nearly 30 years ago, Harter created Gallup’s on-going employee engagement & wellbeing studies. And on this podcast, he taps into compelling data and insight to bring us all current.

As you’ll hear, millions more employees around the world are now engaged at work. And, provocatively, the country of Singapore took their low engagement so seriously they’ve more than doubled the nation’s engagement scores.  And just this week, The Drucker Institute published its annual list of the 250 World’s Best Managed Companies by stating that the organizations making the biggest leaps on the rankings also had the biggest gains in employee engagement.

As you might imagine, engagement hasn’t gotten better everywhere. So listen to this rare opportunity to hear Jim Harter explain what the most enlightened companies are doing to inspire their workforces – and the advantages they now hold over competitors who’ve yet to take engagement seriously.

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If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like.

But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employee engagement across the world – not to mention other distressing trends on employee stress, health and well-being – they began to ask themselves whether they were part of the problem.

Faculties and administrators reflected upon how successful they’d historically been in preparing students to manage other human beings in the workplace. And they collectively concluded that their traditional methods of preparing future leaders was entirely deficient and required a massive reinvention.

Fast-forward to today: At Yale’s graduate school of business, students take a mandatory class on “purpose.”  At Harvard, MBA students are being taught groundbreaking science on how to achieve personal happiness. They’re also reading about Chinese Philosophers and how spiritual wisdom can guide their management decisions.  And these same kinds of curriculum changes are happening at Wharton, The University of Michigan – and business schools across the world.

In what proves to be a remarkable & compelling discussion of why all of this is happening in MBA Programs, podcast guest, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor, Leah Weiss, shares why a class she teaches called, “Leading With Mindfulness And Compassion” has become the top elective course in her school’s MBA program.

Weiss is the author of the brand new bestseller, “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity And Embrace The Daily Grind,” and if you want a glimpse into the future of workplace leadership – not to mention fabulous insight into practices and skills that can help you to better “Know Thyself,” listening in will prove invaluable.

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Everyone has self-limiting behaviors, for the simple reason that we’re all human. But frequently, what holds women back from obtaining the next raise, promotion or job tends to be different from men.

In their new bestseller, “How Women Rise,” legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, and Sally Helgesen – the person Forbes Magazine named the world’s top women’s leadership expert – partnered up to explain which bad habits all too frequently hold back women.

But in this podcast that was intentionally designed to benefit all managers, Sally explains why men and women often approach leadership differently, and how their unique set of bad habits can derail their desired growth.

Leveraging a thirty-year career as a researcher and author – while tapping into all she’s learned from Marshall’s four-decades of coaching male executives – Sally Helgesen shares much surprising and invaluable insight on how to both identify and overcome the unintentional behaviors that unnecessarily impede our progress.

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We’ve all worked for managers who sapped our talent, energy and commitment while always needing to be the smartest person in the room.

And if we’ve been lucky, we’ve also worked for leaders who brought out the better angels of our nature – people who used their own intelligence to amplify the talents and capabilities of every person around them.

So what’s the mindset difference between leaders who unwittingly diminish other people and those who inspire employees to stretch to deliver results that surpass expectations?

That’s the focus of my discussion with Liz Wiseman – consultant to many of the world’s great technology firms, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Multipliers.”

One thing we can all agree upon is that the world desperately needs leaders who can elevate others – genius makers who optimize talent and give people space to do their best work.

And in this truly dynamic chat with Liz, we break down all that it means to be a “Multiplier” kind of leader – and the vital few behaviors which separate them from managers who not only diminish other people but also their own success.

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Podcast 008: Kim Powell

Many of us have it in our mind that very few people (including ourselves) have what it takes to become a CEO. We conjure up images of oversized personalities like Steve Jobs & Jack Welch and assume that’s what a successful CEO looks like.

But in her new best-selling book (and a book Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink selected as one of their top nonfiction books of 2018),“The CEO Next Door,” Kim Powell shows us that CEOs like these are really outliers. And not only don’t you need to be a charismatic, extroverted visionary like Jobs and Welch to become a successful CEO, you don’t need an Ivy League degree or an impeccable resumé either.

Leveraging state-of-the-art analytical tools, Powell and her co-author, Elena Botelho, processed the performance of 2,600 executive leaders before concluding that what truly characterizes high-performing chief executives isn’t at all related to their pedigrees or intellect. Instead, what they all had in common was a mastery of four specific leadership behaviors.

Whether it’s your dream to one day run your own company – or if you just want to greatly elevate your own leadership effectiveness, this podcast introduces all four of these important behaviors, and helps you understand how to immediately apply them in your own career.

The post Kim Powell: Master Just Four Leadership Behaviors And You Could Be CEO Material appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Podcast 007: Dr. James Doty

Dr. James Doty: Stanford Medical School Professor Says The Heart Matters More Than The Brain In Leadership

As a world-class brain surgeon and Stanford University Medical School professor, Dr. James Doty is nevertheless certain that “the best way of influencing human beings to excel in their jobs is to intentionally and positively affect their hearts.”

These surprising words are found in his New York Times best selling book, “Into The Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest To Discover The Mysteries Of The Brain And The Secrets Of The Heart – and amplify recent medical discoveries that prove the heart plays a far greater role in influencing human behavior than most of us have ever known.

Dr. Doty comes on the podcast to explain how the mind and heart are connected – and what this means for the future of workplace leadership. But as the Director of Stanford’s Center For Altruism And Compassion Research – and a physician to employees in the Silicon Valley, he brings surprising insight into what employees truly want and need in exchange for work. And even though companies like Google and Facebook are known as great places to work, Doty’s take isn’t quite as glowing.

“What people really need and want,” Doty says, “is love.” How he landed on this conclusion is the underlying theme of his discussion with Mark.

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Podcast 006: Geoff Colvin

With technology poised to eliminate millions of jobs in every imaginable industry, we’re left to wonder what kind of work will remain and what skills will be most highly valued in the future workplace.

To answer these serious questions, few people in the world today have a better grasp of what this future looks like than Fortune Magazine editor, Geoff Colvin. With uncommon access to the thinking of global CEOs, academics and economists, Colvin performed his own research before writing his highly acclaimed book, “Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know The Brilliant Machines Never Will.” And if his title doesn’t make it entirely clear, Colvin is fully certain that human skills will hold the highest value in a world that’s rapidly being automated by artificial intelligence and robots.

“Ask employers which skills they’ll need in the next 5-10 years, Colvin writes, “and answers that come back do not include business acumen, analysis or P&L management — left brain thinking skills. Instead, the top priorities will be relationship building, teaming, co-creativity, brainstorming, cultural sensitivity and the ability to manage diverse employees — right brain activities.”

Whether you’re wondering what could happen to your own career, or how to help prepare your business or team for the technological tsunami heading our way, Geoff shares plenty of invaluable insights that will leave you well informed and fully prepared to start taking action. It also happens to be one truly delightful conversation you’re guaranteed to enjoy.

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