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50 'There was an unmistakable crack of a firearm.then another and another. Screams echoed throughout the store. Customers and employees seeking cover and darting for the exits.

He's got a gun!!! One hollers, followed by more screams and shots.'

Unfortunately, this scene is playing out in more and more businesses, government agencies, and in public spaces around the country. With economic turmoil shattering lives, we can only expect these crises to grow and pose an ever-increasing challenge for leaders. The chaos of the times seems to present a new disaster every week, plunging leaders who may be top-notch performers under normal operations into a world of chaos and expectations — situations they are both unequipped to handle and also prone to make well-meaning yet disastrous decisions in the heat of the moment. Leadership in a crisis situation is very different from leadership in a time of normal conditions. On the surface, the Five Practices may not seem to apply to a world turned upside down.

But based on my teaching experience, all leaders in government and industry would find the tools useful and provide the foundation for responding to and recovering from any crisis. The organizational operating models that provide the baseline for a smooth-running enterprise during normal times evaporate during a crisis, throwing the leadership into a morass of uncertainty and chaos. But the chaos can be managed successfully if its impacts are understood. • Tension and stress: In any crisis, leaders are thrust into a stressful and tense environment that puts them under enormous psychological, mental, and physical strain.

Even the most minor decision made under these circumstances can result in catastrophic impacts. • Speed: Everything may initially happen at warp speed, giving little time for thoughtful consideration or consultation. In a crisis, worlds collide and time is the first victim. • Personnel: The right people may not be available to respond to the crisis, resulting in untrained and inexperienced leaders being called upon to step into the chaos. Without the right people the organization will stumble in normal times, but during a crisis the problems are accentuated exponentially. • Organization: Businesses and governments are not necessarily organized to handle crisis. In fact, the organizational hierarchy may be a hindrance to response and recovery.

The flexibility to adapt the organization to the situation is critical to success. • Stakeholders: The list of stakeholders will rapidly expand, bringing in to play new channels of communication, new expectations, and new players--all simultaneously. Suppliers, regulators, families, customers, hospitals, law enforcement will all require a leaders time and interaction. • Communication: The normal channels of communication may not be operative or may be overloaded, requiring new channels and protocols that must be quickly mastered. • Media: The leader in crisis has the media spotlight suddenly amplified, all waiting to report and find fault. • Simplicity: Simplicity is the key in a crisis. Simplicity ultimately wins.

The more complex a leader makes a solution in a crisis the less likely success will be the end result. Understanding the impact a crisis has on the leader is critical to stepping up to the podium as an instructor or facilitator. In teaching crisis leadership in over 100 seminars and workshops, the following lessons can help you prepare: • Experiential: Provide your audience with an example of a crisis that is as real as possible, addressing as many of the above impacts as appropriate. For example, text prepared messages to your audience during the workshop; use relevant, practical organization applications that the audience can identify with, have a roving reporter stress the audience with uncomfortable questions and inquisitions. I have even hit plastic golf balls into the audience to add a little tension and stress to the workshop.

Make the environment of the session as real as possible. If you are not going to make it real, they can read a book and not get the leadership crisis experience. • Do your homework: Each organization has different stress points and leadership expectations. What creates a crisis in the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is very different from a large multinational conglomerate. Teaching leadership in crisis without understanding the organization will certainly undermine the effectiveness of the workshop. • Audio Visuals: Use as many audio visual tools as practical.

They not only educate and entertain, but also can be used to control an audience. There are any number of products available on the internet. I have never had a problem finding the right clip to demonstrate a point.

• Case studies: Actual events that make the point and are relevant to the organization in training are invaluable. In workshops for the food safety community, for example, I draw upon cases from various incidents in food contamination; for public utilities, ice storms and hurricanes; for major corporations, commodity futures exposure. Applying the lessons of The Leadership Challenge to a crisis becomes a matter of common sense. As a brief demonstration of the application of the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® to crisis leadership, I offer the following: Model the Way: In my experience as a leader in business and the military, the quickest way to lose your leadership credentials is to not demonstrate balance in a crisis. Instead of calmly addressing a crisis at hand, the inept crisis leader will lose control of his/her actions, temper, emotions, or awareness.

In the Navy we call it 'losing the bubble'; not being aware of the tactical situation at sea can cost lives. Demonstrate balanced leadership. Inspire a Shared Vision: It is critical in a crisis that we all share the same goal. We may have different reasons for the goal but we have the goal in common.

For example, the obvious goal is to return to normalcy. To employees this means ensuring that their job survives, while an executive worries about stopping the revenue loss. Return to normalcy. Challenge the Process: The organizational processes are stressed in any crisis and may become dysfunctional. A leader in crisis must have the flexibility to adapt to the situation, regardless of the inherent processes of the organization. Flexibility to adapt. Enable Others to Act: In a crisis, much more than in normal operations, effective partnerships are critical to the success.

Simply put, partnerships save lives. Encourage the Heart: Taking care of the response staff is not much different in a crisis as in normal operating situations. What is different is the stress the team is under and how fast this can change. A leader in crisis needs to be more aware of the physical, psychological, and mental condition of the team. An operative that has been controlling an evacuation for 12 hours straight may need time out to regroup. The leader must be aware and respond. It is critical for a leader to be aware as the environment becomes dysfunctional or begins to stabilize.

Although the general rules for leading in a crisis are different, they are not outside the parameters of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. Today, our world is routinely in crisis mode. And even though one leadership style does not fit all, when it comes to dealing with a crisis situation, we are fortunate to have a guide like The Leadership Challenge to serve as the foundation of organizational crisis response and recovery. Gordon Meriwether, a retired Navy Captain, is the Founder of The Uriah Group, a crisis leadership consultancy. He can be reached. A Cincinnati-based nonprofit, has been serving the needs of underprivileged kids and deserving teachers for over 20 years.

Through its Teacher Free Store and Mobile Outreach programs, this great organization bridges the gap for students and schools by providing them with the supplies and educational tools they need to succeed in the classroom and in life. But, the staff realized that one thing was missing from the equation encouragement. And in early 2017, Crayons to Computers launched a new initiative, the #MyWishForYou Campaign.

“My passion for this campaign is simple,” Stephen Bernstein, Director of Marketing & Communications said. “I’ve seen, first-hand, the gratitude that these kids have for the supplies they receive from Crayons to Computers.

One day, specifically, I was brought to tears when a line of 1st Graders approached me with handfuls of pencils, rulers, and the like to thank me for the supplies. They weren’t instructed to do so by their teacher; it was their natural instinct—a reaction that was so raw and pure. It is that experience that served as the spark for the #MyWishForYou Campaign. It is a way to give back to all of those students who give such encouragement to us. If we can help shape their minds with tools and encouragement, then we have done our duty to the next generation of achievers.” In addition to providing students with vital supplies, Crayons to Computers’ #MyWishForYou Campaign engages the community in a note writing campaign to help fuel and inspire the hearts and minds of those they serve.

The goal is to fill 37,000 backpacks with these special notes of encouragement, to be distributed through the Teacher Free Store and Mobile Outreach Program throughout the 2017-18 school year. The #MyWishForYou cards no doubt bring plenty of smiles, inspiration and, perhaps, a tear or two. For some students, it may be the only encouragement they’ve received in a long while. And although it is too early to tell what the long-term impact will be, I predict that this generous and encouraging initiative is already leaving a lasting impression on many of our community’s young people one card at a time. Crayons to Computers is going the extra mile by giving out more than just supplies. They are giving hope. And they are demonstrating that encouraging the hearts of others truly can happen anywhere—in the classroom, boardroom, team meetings, and yes, even in a backpack.

It is never too early or too late to practice Encouraging the Heart. Valarie Willis is a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge® and principal of Valarie Willis Consulting, in Loveland, OH, where she focuses on strategic management consulting. She can be reached.

“It was both humbling and exciting to learn more about myself as a leader and consider new possibilities for growth within my organization and role. Being aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader has challenged me to step outside my comfort zone and push myself into the learning zone.” Celebrating the delivery of our fifth consecutive Masters Give Back offering of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, Certified Master Valarie Willis and I have seen some remarkable things happen within our nonprofit community. We continue to learn from all the hard-working leaders who give of their time and talent to participate with us and who also continue to inspire us to keep giving back. And our most recent experience was no exception.

This year’s program was again held at Camp Joy, our experiential learning venue just north of Cincinnati. It was a two-and-a-half day residential experience that included challenging activities, wonderful networking around an evening campfire, and perfect weather. Many found special value in the formal debriefings we held at the end of each day, designed to help our participants connect the lessons learned during that day’s session to the daily challenges they face on their jobs. They also expressed a great deal of gratitude for the opportunity to network with and learn from other agency leaders facing similar and often daunting challenges of nonprofit work. As one participant described it, “This program not only connected me with nonprofit peers who are going through similar challenges, but it provided me with a realistic roadmap to becoming a stronger leader.

The Five Practices are easy to understand and truly useful, and the lessons learned resonated with me because they were real and practical—unlike other corporate training programs I’ve been through.” Twenty-three participants joined us from a diverse range of nonprofit agencies that serve orphans, those searching for jobs, those who desperately need a place to live, and those young girls aspiring to be our next generation of leaders (i.e., Girl Scouts). They were fully engaged and stepped up to the task of becoming better models of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. As part of the group’s final experiential activity, we asked each person to declare something they would like to leave behind when they left the program and were back on the job or returning to their personal lives—an old behavior or mindset. We also asked them to name something new that they were committed to achieving as they moved toward becoming a better leader.

It was gratifying to hear so many of our participants reference specifics from their LPI® feedback or aspirations from their work on vision creation as the foundations for the changes they wanted to make. They left the experience light on sleep, but deep in the commitment to become better. About one month after our programs, I routinely reach out to participants to gauge the impact the program had on people.

And again, both Valerie and I continue to find inspiration in responses such as this one, from a leader who participated in one of our programs three years ago: “My department's annual budget results increased 1,175% (from $88K to $1.12M) and 75% of the time we’ve exceeded all of our KPIs. The poorly-performing programs I inherited were $300K in the red; now they are $10K in the black. The fact that I attended The Leadership Challenge Workshop at Camp Joy was certainly a key reason for these successes.

Neither the work nor the people changed. I started leading and that was the biggest factor.” Thank you to everyone at Wiley who continues to support the Masters Give Back program. Your support has been instrumental in helping us create a living leadership development process that makes a difference. Steve Coats, Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge, is managing partner and co-owner of International Leadership Associates, a leadership development education and consulting firm. For over 25 years, Steve has taught, coached, and consulted with executives and all levels of managers around the world in leadership development, team development, personal growth, change, and business strategy. Steve can be reached. Long-time reporter and columnist Adam Bryant had been interviewing CEOs for years, covering everything from growth plans to moving their businesses to the cloud, but about a decade ago he realized that what he really wanted to know was how they led.

So, he decided to do just that and started writing his Corner Office column in the New York Times, sharing the valuable lessons he learned about management, leadership, and human behavior. On October 27 of this year, he wrote his very last column for the newspaper, that focused on some of the standout themes from the 525 interview he’s conducted.

In that piece he wrote, “If you were to force me to rank the most important qualities of effective leadership, I would put trustworthiness at the top.” Adam will certainly get affirmation from the latest LPI® data as Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner report on in The Leadership Challenge, sixth edition. Ongoing research continually finds that there is a consistent and dramatic relationship between the extent to which people trust their organization’s management and the frequency they find their leaders following through on promises and commitments. In fact, there is a six-fold increase in levels of trust between the bottom and top of the range in the frequency to which people report their leaders DWTSTWD (do what they say they will do). Learn more in the 6 th edition of.

“Your title makes you a manager. Your people will decide if you’re a leader, and it’s up to you to live up to that.” Certified Master Melvin Chia finds this quote from a recent World Economic Forum article, most compelling. “It’s important to constantly ask for feedback from your constituents,” Melvin says, “to understand them better and constantly improve one’s leadership.”most compelling. “It’s important to constantly ask for feedback from your constituents,” Melvin says, “to understand them better and constantly improve one’s leadership.”. Is an exceptional book about leadership, specifically addressing the need for leaders to accept extreme ownership in everything they do. The authors, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, are highly-accomplished Navy Seals who led military personnel in one of the most dangerous locations in the Iraq War. The introduction to the book explains quite clearly what leadership means to a Navy Seal team: where failure often means death, leadership is the single most important factor to success.

And each of the following 12 chapters tells a leadership story of the Navy Seals in action during the battle for Ramadi, transitions into a discussion of a specific leadership principle, and finishes with how this principle applies to business. The stories are riveting, the principles timeless, and the business application brings the principles to life.

The primary takeaway from Extreme Ownership is that leaders must practice extreme ownership of everything the organization does—or fails to do. They must take appropriate corrective action to remedy problems, and do whatever they must to ensure the team succeeds. Although written by two Navy Seals, Willink and Babin carefully and clearly translate their military experience to everyday leadership challenges in business and society. The stories are real, which adds great credibility to their message about the importance of becoming an extraordinary leader. More importantly, each lesson discussed translates very well to The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®.

This book is riveting in its story telling of America’s heroes in action. Their heroism, combined with their leadership lessons, makes this a must-read for all of us in the business of developing leaders. Rogers, Ph.D., is a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge and Program Manager for the Army Medical Department Executive Skills Program. A Board Certified Healthcare Executive and Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), he can be reached.

Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup Company, has long been held in high esteem for the remarkable turnaround he led at this iconic American company. When he came on board in 2001, he found staff frustrated and worn thin by years of failing market strategies and losses to the competition. As he writes in his LinkedIn blog,, he knew that in order to create meaningful change, an environment that would be capable of achieving the extraordinary, he would have to find powerful ways to earn the trust of everyone in the organization. His 10-point Leadership Pledge is a masterful example of a clear leadership philosophy that was key to the company's turnaround.

LPI® research data underscores the importance of what made Doug’s achievements at Campbell possible. For example, responses to the LPI question of how strongly direct reports agree or disagree that “overall, my supervisor is an effective leader” provide undeniable proof that being clear about who you are and what you stand for is essential: constituents whose leaders are clear about their leadership philosophy are 40% more committed than those whose leaders are not clear. In addition, direct reports whose leaders ranked among the top 20 percent on clarity of their leadership philosophy also have more favorable feelings about other aspects of their workplace: 35% are more trusting of management 30% feel a stronger sense of team spirit 26% are clearer about what is expected of them 22% have a stronger feeling that they are making a difference Learn more in the 6th edition of. We often talk about the outcomes of positive, ‘transformational’, extraordinary leadership in organizations. And when those of us working with The Leadership Challenge® hear about the wonderful changes that occur in the lives of team members and others—especially in their working lives when leaders actively increase the frequency of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®—it confirms our belief in what has been repeatedly validated for over 30 years: great leadership creates great workplaces. In getting to the point where organizations commit to investing in leadership development, we share with decision-makers all the positive aspects we have seen with other clients as a result of having embedded leadership development into the culture and training of their leaders. Sometimes, however, the cost of the investment to bring about change in leadership behaviors becomes a barrier, or at least a point of resistance.

Often, the benefits of leadership development are difficult to quantify. We know that poor leadership can lead to reduced engagement scores, lower productivity, increased absenteeism, and more.

But what about the cost—in real dollars—of poor leadership? Clearly there are a number of cost factors to consider, including those related to replacing an employee who leaves and the loss of corporate intelligence; the impact on financial targets; and the deep and successful external relationships disrupted or lost. To drive this point home, whenever I have a representative of HR participating in one of my workshops I ask, “How long does it take to ‘replace’ someone who has left the organization?” By replace, I mean ‘to bring the new person to a level where their performance is the same as the person who has resigned’. Typically, responses range from one to two years (two years being the most common), with one Group HR Director recently responding “six years.” Of course, it could be argued that the time taken for a new employee to achieve the same level of expertise and productivity as the previous person in that position is dependent on a number of factors. Sometimes the ‘new’ person is better, smarter, faster, younger, older.and more quickly takes up the performance expectations.

But whether it takes two years or as many as six, that’s a significant—and yet avoidable—loss of productive hours, let alone extra training costs and other expenses related to onboarding a new employee. One situation I’m familiar with provides an excellent example of what the cost of poor leadership can look like: This organization is in the business of providing a range of high-end professional services. Maryam was a Senior Manager. Every year, she was given ‘stretch’ sales targets. But because of her commitment to succeed, each year she exceeded those targets—often by 15 or 25%. In 2016, her target was increased by 35% from the previous year.

Of course, she achieved it. Maryam’s staff loved her. They were committed and highly engaged. But Maryam had a problem: her manager. After working long hours to achieve great results and have a high-performing team respond so well to her leadership, she finally decided she had had enough of the poor ‘leadership’ and consistently negative behavior from her manager.

After seven years with the company, she resigned. I asked her how her team responded when they heard the news.

“Four of them resigned.” As a result of Maryam’s departure, there have been number of other impacts: the office she worked in had to re-structure, significant organizational ‘intelligence’ has now left the company with the departure of five staff, and it’s likely that some clients with whom Maryam and the other four team members had a successful relationship with may move to another provider, or at least question their loyalty to this organization now that key relationship partners have left. In my initial, somewhat conservative assessment of the cost of her resignation, I had suggested a figure of $200,000. I later revised my estimate up after learning that Maryam was the top performer in the region in terms of revenue generation, and taking into account that four of her staff also resigned as a result of her resignation. Based on these additional facts, the cost to the company is likely to be closer to $800,000.

But let’s be conservative. Let’s say it’s only half that. Even large companies would feel the cost of $400,000all brought on by poor leadership. While this example may be at the higher end of possible costs, even if the cost of replacing a staff member who leaves because of poor leadership is $100,000 or $50,000, this can be avoided by embedding leadership development into an organization’s culture and making it a priority to nurture and develop exemplary leaders at all levels. Graham Moore is the first Certified Master for The Leadership Challenge in the Middle East.

Originally from Australia and now based in Dubai, UAE, Graham has 20+ years of experience as a facilitator and has presented The Leadership Challenge® in 15 countries around the world. Among his many contributions to the TLC community, he helped capture the powerful story of the Ministry of Tourism of Ajman (one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates) into a video case study available on. Graham can be reached. Feeling stressed? Seeing more conflict within your teams?

Is there heightened tension among your peers and direct reports? If this is the state of your workplace, you’re not alone. According to the recent conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), stress among US residents across the country is at the highest level ever.

Since 2007, the APA has surveyed the attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public, identifying leading sources, behaviors used to manage stress, and the impact on our lives. Importantly, it also draws attention to the serious physical and emotional implications of stress on the mind and the body. Read more and download the full report. To achieve extraordinary results, leaders must recognize the input and energy that come from others as they facilitate continuous improvement, change, and collaboration. One school of thought that has emerged in recent decades as a way in which leaders can unite that energy to build and sustain high-performing teams is Human Systems Theory. A human system, as defined by, one of the leaders of systems-based approaches to leadership, is when two or more people come together through dependency with a common purpose and identity.

This entity is recognized as having power, energy, and knowledge. And when a fused team taps into those attributes answers show up, deep respect for input from others exists, change is welcomed, and unity is evident—even in times of conflict.

This “human system” team is leadership in action. Over the years, research from such systems-theory pioneers as Peter Senge has provided evidence that a move away from top-down or lead-from-the-front leadership is more and more being superseded by this type of relationship-based approach in which decisions coming from a collective wisdom contribute to a strong ‘team entity’. And it is this systems-based state that closely aligns with The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. It is often suggested that the benefits of mindfulness can be directly linked to better leadership.

But according to Daniel Goleman and Matt Lippincott, the relationship between the two may be much more complicated than a simple cause-and-effect. In their article,, published last month in Harvard Business Review, the authors make the argument that improving such broader emotional intelligence competencies as empathy, conflict management, and persuasive communication is key to becoming a more effective leader.

Q: What are some of the main challenges for modern-day leaders? A: Challenge is the defining context for leadership. For over three decades, Barry Posner and I having been asking people to tell us about their personal-best leadership experiences, and the stories are always about dealing with adversity and hardship, doing something no one had ever done before, turning around a losing operation, starting something from scratch, breaking away from tradition, installing untested processes, or struggling with poorly performing units. They were not about maintaining the status quo, but rather about changing the business-as-usual environment. This is a critical lesson to keep in mind, because no one ever got anything extraordinary done without initiating and accepting a challenge. Challenge, it turns out, is the crucible for greatness.

Exemplary leaders view challenge as opportunities to excel. With that perspective in mind, leaders today will be dealing with a variety of challenges that include the rise of emerging markets that are shifting the centers of commerce, rapid technological advancements that are enabling connectivity globally, climate changes that will impact water sources, agriculture production, and sea levels, aging populations that are putting pressure on social support systems in many countries and the large number of unemployed or underemployed young people in others. In our work in leadership development, there is a major concern about the lack of a sufficient number of trained leaders to move into more senior roles. Organizations can’t keep up with the demand for more and better leaders, and young people don’t have enough opportunities to learn to lead.

For example, in one study, 90 per cent of employers want to see leadership development opportunities as part of every student’s educational experience, but fewer than 6 per cent of universities have formal leadership development programs. Another issue is the low levels of trust in leaders globally, in both the private and public sectors. Trust started falling precipitously during the recession that began in 2008, and while it has started to improve, trust in leaders is still at a very low level in most countries around the world. That is a major challenge to leaders because without people’s trust one cannot lead effectively. Adapted from an interview with Jim Kouzes, What Makes a Good Leader?, published in Gulf Business, the premier business monthly reaching leaders across the Middle East, including UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. Jim Kouzes is the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.

Cited by The Wall Street Journal as one of the twelve best executive educators in the U.S., he was also winner of the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award by Trust Across America. Together with Barry Posner, he is author of over 30 books and workbooks on leadership and leadership development, including the just released fully-revised and updated sixth edition of the international bestseller, The Leadership Challenge, and Learning Leadership, selected by Strategy+Business as one of the 2016 Best Business Books of Year. If you run in the same types of circles that I do, you can't go an hour without thinking about, hearing about, or being asked about culture. Everyone is talking about what programs they are implementing, how they are redesigning their organizational structure, even adding free beer to the lunch room (I'm not kidding!) But none of these exercises matter when you miss the first and most critical element of a culture. At the heart of every strong culture there is a set of guiding principles that everyone “gets”—at a soul level. It drives what people will pursue and how they will treat each other and your clients.

No matter the cost, the group will not violate its principles because the pain of living outside of its values is more hurtful than any other loss. In the 6th edition of The Leadership Challenge, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner write that their 'studies have shown that shared values foster heightened levels of motivation and intense feelings of personal effectiveness.

They promote pride, high levels of company loyalty (lower turnover), and teamwork, and reduce levels of job stress and tension.' Sounds like all the things that happen when you have a great culture, right? This is probably something that is intuitive to you. But the real question is how did those teams get so aligned to begin with?

We may get that a strong culture is based on shared ideals, but have no idea where to start to build those ideals. So, how do we get that done? Here's the hardest, simple answer to that question: it starts with you. In every strong culture we admire, there was that one person who had the courage to figure out what they stand for and to share it, openly through word and deed, and never waiver. That person develops TRUST and others begin to WANT to be associated with that person because that person's steadfastness is a reflection on THEM. They are wise with their words, attention and time to ensure that they all align with who they espouse to be. They make it safe for others to share their values too, and they LISTEN and CARE about what they hear.

Only then can the organization and its members develop a language of its own and develop the culture it wants. So, we can create all the culture teams and programs that we want, and they may land or not. But you cannot create anything lasting without first addressing the values of the organization by being clear about yours. And it just takes that one person to get started. Will it be you? Amanda Nelson, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is a Certified Master-in-Training of The Leadership Challenge and currently Director of Human Resources at Lerch Bates, Inc.

Where she oversees global HR functions, including culture development, succession planning, and performance management. She lives to help others win in life and work through coaching and facilitating leadership development experiences. She can be contacted at or follow her on. An ancient Chinese proverb that says, “The longest journey begins with a single step” is one that guides our work as facilitators in our Open Enrollment Workshops in Shanghai.

Whether working with individual leaders in The Leadership Challenge® Workshop or in a Facilitator Training with those learning to become facilitators themselves, we often begin the journey by asking participants to share stories about The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. Here are four of our favorites that stand out as demonstrating important lessons about leadership. Story One: Inspire a Shared Vision Two employees of Alibaba, the biggest internet and intranet company in China, shared a story of the company’s Founder and CEO, Jack Ma. Fifteen years ago he had a vision to “Make business easy in the world” and to “Enable everyone to pay for goods and services by using technology.” Today, even in China’s most rural villages, you will see farmers and laborers selling their products, ordering goods, and making transactions by just clicking their smartphone. And right now, Jack Ma’s vision is only getting bigger. He not only connects sellers and buyers online, making payments by Alipay, he also built the intranet logistic system called Cai Niao (New Bird), which impacts health care, hospital payments, insurance, and many other areas. Jack Ma’s vision for Alibaba has transformed the way millions of Chinese and people worldwide go about their day.

Story Two: Model the Way Recent class participant Mandy Qin introduced the notion of “intent vs impact”—the concept of what we intend to do versus how it is received by our teams—that created a spirited discussion about how we as leaders are always on stage. The class spoke passionately about how real this concept is for leaders. They shared that even the best intentions of the best leaders occasionally have an adverse impact. One example comes from my own coaching experience working with a national sales and marketing director. After he completed the LPI® assessment and received his personalized report he was shocked with the results. He had intended to be an exemplary leader but his peers and others clearly interpreted his behaviors differently.

They did not often see this leader “walking the talk” and “showing respect and integrity”—all of which resulted in conflicts across functions. Story Three: Enable Others to Act Colin Pine had just graduated from law school in New York when he saw an unusual classified ad in the New York Times for a translator for the NBA who spoke Mandarin. He researched the ad and soon learned that it was Yao Ming, China’s most famous basketball player, who needed help navigating language and life in the U.S. Colin took the job as Yao’s English teacher and translator, but with one major condition: he would only serve for a few years.

By then, he announced, Yao would be equipped to speak and read English well on his own. His decision to ultimately work himself out of the job shows the power of Enable Others to Act. During the time that they worked together, Colin and Yao built a high-trust relationship. And as Colin gave his power away, he ultimately strengthened Yao’s ability to navigate the rigors of NBA life on his own. Yao retired after eight seasons in the NBA.

He now speaks and reads English thanks to the leadership of Colin Pine. Story Four: – Challenge the Process In a luncheon speech recently, Shao Bin Zhao, Director of Organization Development at Orient Scape, a company famous for urban landscape and environmental treatment, spoke about how some of the “old school” managers at his organization did not care much about employee well-being. Highlighting the fact that members of his organization had been working 12 hours-a-day, six days-a-week (yes, 72 hours a week!) to meet their goals, he described the emotional burden that this “command and control” style of leadership has had on the staff. It is not surprising to learn of the 33% turnover which the company is experiencing. Later, when he participated in our workshop he reflected on the burden employees were experiencing and committed to Challenge the Process by talking candidly about ways to make work enjoyable and meaningful—not just an endurance test. By the end of our four days together, he determined that his organization’s journey toward better, smarter, more enduring leadership would begin with the single step of bringing The Leadership Challenge® to Orient Scape’s leadership team. He will be the first seed of better leadership there.

And we all wish him good luck! Storytelling is a powerful tool to use when facilitating a workshop for leaders and/or a training session for facilitators. When we want to engage others in implementing change initiatives, connect personally with fellow team members, convey important organizational or leadership lessons, or inspire followers to share our vision, stories are a much more effective means of communication (versus facts, charts, and PowerPoint slides). They can help bridge cultural and language divides, more clearly illustrate complex concepts, and make it much easier for people to remember and resonate with a shared emotion. Qiu Hua (Connie) Stephens is a Certified Master-in-Training of The Leadership Challenge and founder of Shanghai-based HeadStart Consulting Inc.

Where she works with clients throughout Asia and the U.S. On leadership development, coaching, and organization development. She is also an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with over 3000 coaching hours. She can be reached. What does it take to develop a “signature story”—one that is inspiring and helps learners connect to a specific LPI® leadership behavior or key concept? In, a recent webinar co-sponsored by the Human Capital Institute and Wiley, Certified Master Renee Harness and The Leadership Challenge practitioner Vaundee Arnold tackle that question with practicality and humor.

They detail the components that make stories memorable, examine the research around imagery and storytelling, and provide proven tips and techniques for creating and sharing stories that effectively engage learners in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®. This webinar is eligible for SHRM-CP SM or SHRM-SCP SM credit. The Practice of Model the Way urges leaders to set the example, to go first. Exemplary leaders, the research demonstrates, maintain respect and credibility for themselves and their organizations when they are vulnerable, open, and honest—especially when things go wrong. And examples abound of CEOs and other high-profile leaders who have both failed or excelled at delivering what former chairman and CEO of Medtronic Arthur Collins Jr. Calls an “honest apology.” In his interview on Knowledge@Wharton’s SiriusXM,, he discusses the power of an honest apology, why waiting to apologize can be so costly, the importance of taking personal responsibility—whether it was a mess you created or not—and much more.

Q: In my financial services organization, several of our managers/leaders have taken the LPI® Self assessment, administered by our HR Department and managed via the LPI Online portal. The LPI reports are used to create individual development plans that sometimes include further training workshops. Participants are aware that their individual reports will be reviewed by members of the HR/Talent Development team to provide guidance for one-to-one coaching, scheduling of any additional training, and also to report out to upper management on an individual’s overall progress and outcome of the training. Given that others will see their LPI report and may make judgements—rightly or wrongly—about an individual’s potential or performance, I wonder if our leaders are not trying to “game” the instrument. Whether consciously or subconsciously, are they reacting to the stress they feel about how the results will affect their development plans, career paths, or even employment prospects and inadvertently altering their responses?

Are they approaching it as a “test” rather than answering honestly about the frequency with which they exhibit the 30 behaviors? A: Let me begin by establishing first and foremost that the purpose of the LPI is developmental. In some ways it doesn’t matter what the individual’s “scores” are, as much as it matters that the person is motivated to take action to become a better leader.

The initial iteration of the LPI is not about good or bad, above or below average, but a baseline report that provides a foundation for suggesting areas in which the person could increase his or her frequency of behavior. This is from the normative perspective that the more frequently one engages in the 30 leadership behaviors (indeed, any one of them), the person will be more effective.

While coaching advice for any one individual compared to another will vary, what doesn’t vary is the question “what can you do to become an even better leader in the future than you are today?” Because there aren’t any behaviors on the LPI that an individual cannot do, if he/she wanted to, thought it was important to do, remembered to do, felt more comfortable and skillful at doing, and so on. The LPI is not a test.

Barry Posner, Ph.D., is the Accolti Endowed Professor of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, where he served as Dean for 12 years. Together with Jim Kouzes, he is author of over 30 books and workbooks on leadership and leadership development, including the just released fully-revised and updated sixth edition of the international bestseller, The Leadership Challenge, and Learning Leadership, selected by Strategy+Business as one of the 2016 Best Business Books of Year. One of the great traditions of the annual Leadership Challenge Forum is the chance for a few of us to facilitate a special Masters Give Back offering of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop. Each year it’s an opportunity to Model the Way as we strive toward the goal of “liberating the leader in everyone”—specifically a diverse group of non-profit leaders in and around the community in which we meet. This yearly workshop is a collaborative effort—with Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, our colleagues at Wiley, Certified Masters, Certified Masters-in-Training, and Global Training Partners—that is often a highlight of the Forum experience for the people involved. And this year was no exception, with the themes of diversity and collaboration dominating our team’s experience as we gathered for Forum 2017 in San Diego. The facilitator team is diverse in its own right: different nationalities and backgrounds, all coming from different places across the globe.

We had Evans Kerrigan from New Jersey, Amy Dunn from Connecticut, Connie Stevens from Shanghai, and Debbie Nicol who lives and works in Dubai but hails originally from Australia. And with different continents, widely varying time zones, and access to conflicting communication and document sharing technology, creative collaboration was key from the start of our planning process.

In fact, the only “live” group meeting we were able to pull off in advance of meeting in San Diego was conducted exclusively via an international text app! Less than ideal, but the collaborative spirit and a good dose of humor made for a productive session despite the obstacles. Perhaps you could say we Challenged the Process! The impact on the entire team was best described by Debbie Nicol when she said, “Diversity is like a vast tapestry, bestowing upon a wall or floor new colors and textures.

With the sharing of facilitation techniques and approaches, my tapestry became bigger and brighter, and a lot more to pack in my bags as I spread the word of The Leadership Challenge across the seas.” Each one of us echoes that feeling (not necessarily as poetically) after a wonderful process of creating and delivering the program and learning from each other. We also had help from a diverse group of other collaborators. As part of our extended facilitating team family, a big shout out to San Diego-based co-founder of Integris Performance Advisors, Tracy O’Rourke, who tapped into her area network to raise awareness of this opportunity and was instrumental in engaging the group of non-profit leaders who attended. As the Global Training Partner sponsor of this years’ program, Integris also volunteered the time and talents of co-founder Brett Cooper (a great example of Inspire a Shared Vision) and Client Experience Director Samantha Kerrigan (a great example of GSD – otherwise known as Getting Stuff DONE!). Their collaboration was certainly one that Enabled (Us) Others to Act.

Our 19 workshop participants represented great diversity as well, with leaders coming from a variety of organizations, including San Diego Zoo Global, Challenge Center, AIDS Service Foundation OC, Fred Finch Youth Center, GLA Foundation, National Defense Industrial Association, San Diego Humane Society, Boy Scouts, Bread of Life Rescue Mission, and San Diego Council on Literacy. Beginning with the LPI® and a review of all participants’ results, everyone engaged in a variety of exercises and small group discussions that brought each of The Five Practices to life—including the Paper Towers activity that helped demonstrate the Practice of Enable Others to Act. We also used an Awards Table packed with small dollar-store items that underscored one of the key commitments to Encourage the Heart: “Recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence.” Throughout the day participants called time out to select and present an award any time they felt moved to do so. A highlight for everyone was the opportunity to join a special Q & A session over lunch with Jim and Barry that really enriched the experience for our workshop participants! They gained a deeper understanding about The Leadership Challenge and The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®.

Many thanks to the authors for their openness and generous sharing. And finally, at the end of the day each participant was asked to share two words that captured the essence of their experience and take-away insights. We heard things like “amazing experience”, “very inspiring”, “thought-provoking” and “meaningful feedback”. For John Damstra, local Boy Scouts Troop Leader, there was no hesitation.

Quickly pointing to a chart on the wall, he declared, “That’s my takeaway!”’. The chart showing a simple structure to increase the impact of recognition read: 1) Link item with action, 2) What that showed us about you, 3) What that did for us. This best practice is one Debbie uses effectively to support people practicing recognition while in the workshop setting and can continue to be a valuable tool for them back on the job as well. In fact, John acknowledged that he could see how using these tips will help him double the impact of his efforts by reinforcing individual excellence while also building a spirit of community. Another participant, Regional VP of the Fred Finch Youth Center Ali Freedman, summed up her experience this way: “The amount of material covered in one day was remarkable.

By changing our groups and having us engage with different small groups in different areas not only helped us get the most out of the diversity within the group, but it also helped us remember the different exercises and hold on to the salient points. I came away feeling my day was very well spent and I would continue to draw from the material and the process for a long time to come as I continue to progress as a leader.” In addition to the wonderful feeling of giving back to leaders who give so much in service to their communities, Amy and Evans also were honored to be able to give back to the Certified Master program. As Amy reflected, “As a Certified Master-in-Training in 2015, I was invited by Dan Schwab and Tom Pearce to participate in that year’s Masters Give Back workshop in San Francisco. It was an important and enriching experience on my journey of becoming a Certified Master and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ to Connie and Debbie this year. When Renee Harness (mentor to Debbie) and Tom Pearce (mentor to Connie) reached out to see if we could include them, Evans and I jumped at the chance to do so.” We all feel honored and privileged to be part of Masters Give Back program and learned not only from our fellow facilitators but also from the participants. Connie shared a Chinese saying, “Teaching benefits teachers as well as students”.

This experience shows how true that saying is. Qiu Hua (Connie) Stephens is a Certified Master-in-Training of The Leadership Challenge and founder of Shanghai-based HeadStart Consulting Inc. Where she works with clients throughout Asia and the U.S. On leadership development, coaching, and organization development.

She is also an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with over 3000 coaching hours. She can be reached at Debbie Nicol is a Certified Master-in-Training of The Leadership Challenge and founder of Dubai-based ‘business en motion’, a business consultancy and learning organization which moves businesses and leaders ahead through training, coaching and consultancy services. She can be reached. Amy Dunn, a Certified Professional Coach and Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge, is principal of Dunn Talent Consulting and a frequent collaborator with the Integris Performance Advisors consulting team where she focuses on facilitation, coaching, talent management, and meeting design. She can be reached.

Evans Kerrigan, a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge, is a founder and Managing Partner of Integris Performance Advisors, a consulting company dedicated to increasing the existence of healthy organizations and great places to work. He provides consulting services in leadership, team development, continuous improvement and strategic planning. Evans can be reached.

The Leadership Challenge® Workshop is an amazing experience for so many people. Time spent with others making commitments as to how they will engage in the behaviors and practices of exemplary leadership really gets leaders fired-up about making substantive changes in their work and personal lives. You see the passion and purpose in participants’ eyes as they walk out of the workshop. And we, as facilitators and coaches, “hope” we have provided each and every person the tools they need to be successful. However, when we visit with these same leaders a few weeks later, the fire we once saw is now merely a flicker: the “real world” of work has overshadowed the excitement they had in the workshop. And despite our best efforts—e.g., post-workshop learning trios, individual coaching sessions, following up with one-day sessions at six months—we wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was something more we could do to help keep that passion burning brightly.

One leader of a government social service agency I have worked with extensively—training nearly 600 leaders in The Leadership Challenge—has implemented a creative way of keeping others focused on The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® with meaningful and targeted email communications. Each weekly email reminds them of one of the 30 behaviors associated with The Five Practices, encouraging leaders to focus their thoughts and actions on that specific area for the entire week. And, unique among other organizations I work with, this client also includes inspiring quotes and links to additional resources, from YouTube and Ted Talks to HBR, which truly bring the Practices to life and continue the learning. Here is one example: Email Title: What Can We Learn? Behavior #18 – Asks “What can we learn?” when things don’t go as expected. Good morning LCers!

(Leadership Challengers) Last week, I started highlighting the behaviors of The Leadership Challenge in hopes of focusing our thoughts and actions on one topic for an entire week. As a reminder, we focused on Behavior #9 - Actively listens to diverse points of view. How did that go for you? Did you see a difference?

I would love to hear your stories from your week! This week, I want to focus on Behavior #18 – Asks “What can we learn?” when things don’t go as expected. This is really an easy concept to understand but, at the same time, really difficult to put into practice—especially in a fast-paced environment like ours. I think the reason it is so difficult to put into practice is because it takes a high level of vulnerability on the part of everyone involved in the process. We are often quick to look for someone or something to blame when things don’t go as expected. We often ask “What went wrong” verses “What can we learn?” and there is a HUGE difference. Here also is some cool stuff I found that may help make this behavior a little easier to put into practice: • • • • • • I hope and trust that you find value in some of these resources and that, either at work or at home, when something doesn’t go the way that we had anticipated we ask “What can we learn?” versus “What went wrong?”.

Finally, thank you so much for your personal commitment to The Leadership Challenge! We are hearing wonderful success stories about how The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® are being creatively implemented. If you have a story that you would like to share, please give me a call or send me an email!

Download Muhammad Rafi Songs Zip. We would all like to celebrate your small (and big) wins! Enjoy the week! Notice how the email mentions the focus from the previous week and encourages reflection?

As a reminder, we focused on Behavior #9 - Actively listens to diverse points of view. How did that go for you? Did you see a difference? I would love to hear your stories from your week!

This encourages leaders to stay engaged, providing small reminders that leadership is about learning. Another example focuses on seeking out challenging opportunities to test leadership skills, and includes the following message: Email Title: Challenge Yourself Behavior #3 – Seeks out challenging opportunities that test his/her own skills and abilities. It’s pretty easy to get comfortable, isn’t it? Be it at work or in our personal lives, we as human beings generally choose to take the path of least resistance. Why wouldn’t we, right? We have the ability to create scenarios, situations, and processes in our life that make our day “easier”. Most of the time this can be a really good thing!

Can you imagine doing everything that we need to do every day without so many of the “shortcuts” we have created? I think this is why this exemplary leadership behavior, associated with the Practice of Challenge the Process, is so critical to our growth and development as leaders. Consider the following quote: Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Kennedy We need to challenge ourselves to seek out opportunities to do not what is easy and convenient but what is hard and difficult, because through this we grow and help others around us to grow as well. What is one skill or ability you would like to improve on over the next 30 days?

Think about that. Then, I challenge you to share your goal with someone you trust and ask them to hold you accountable to challenge yourself to achieve it.

Here are a couple of things I found that might help with this challenge: • • So, what part of your “ordinary” do you want to make extraordinary? What have you been wanting to do as a leader that seems a bit out of your comfort zone? Take a few minutes to write down your thoughts and begin to challenge yourself over the next week to take steps to move forward on these. And as always, keep me posted on your progress! Elon Musk, CEO of the revolutionary car company Tesla and darling of Wall Street, recently took to Twitter to thank his customers.

In a tweet of less than 30 words he expressed genuine gratitude, demonstrated honest emotion, and took another essential step in sustaining an intensely loyal connection with his company’s customers. And as Inc.com contributor Justin Bariso () deconstructs Musk’s words, he uses them to highlight four simple steps that will help you take advantage of the many opportunities you have on any given day to show appreciation to others. Sometimes the risks you take pay off. For me, my journey began in June of 1987. That’s when Jim Kouzes traveled from the sunny West Coast to a very rustic camp in southwest Ohio to help me introduce his brand new model of leadership to a group of managers from AT&T, where I was employed at the time. And the impact it had on me was profound: within 6 months I’d conspired with other colleagues to form a business whose sole mission was to take Jim and Barry’s refreshingly practical model—The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®—to organizations across the globe.

Then just last month at in San Diego, I had the privilege of again joining a few hundred learning and development colleagues from around the world who came together to celebrate the sixth edition of the groundbreaking book,, and the 30th anniversary of The Five Practices methodology that has literally become the worldwide standard for what leaders need to do to help people produce extraordinary results in their work and personal lives. For two full days I engaged with like-minded leadership development professionals, learned from experts in a variety of breakout sessions, and walked away with three important observations/lessons: Lesson One: There is no longer any reason to spend time on the question, “Do leaders make a positive difference?” The answer is: they do.

And here’s why. In their opening keynote presentation on Day One of the Forum, Jim and Barry highlighted some of their most recent findings—research findings that directly connect more frequent leader behaviors related to The Five Practices with higher levels of trust, overall engagement, peoples’ willingness to work hard, leader effectiveness, and just about everything else.

The authors have provided this evidence for years. It is now simply even more complete and convincing. But, as my journalism friends tell me, “Always verify your facts with a second source.” So following that advice, I offer the words of WD-40 Company CEO Garry Ridge who keynoted on Day Two. In a nutshell, here is what he said: At WD-40, we do this leadership stuff throughout the company. And in a world where 30% employee engagement is the norm, virtually all of our engagement metrics are above the 90th percentile.

Our overall employee engagement score is 93%. And just so you know, our return to shareowners averages over 15% annually. We doubled our growth the past few years and will do the same in the next few. WD-40’s results are indeed impressive, but there are many other examples like them. Leadership makes a difference.

The enduring value of The Leadership Challenge is it tells us what leaders actually do when they are making that positive, bottom line difference. I rest my case. Lesson Two: There is that wise saying that if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. Not once during the Forum did I ever feel the slightest urge to move along. The breakout session presenters were awesome in their enthusiasm and their messages. One simply could not help but learn something of value about The Five Practices. There were clients, Certified Masters, authors, and a variety of other smart and experienced people sharing their expertise and lessons learned.

It was quite amazing to witness how many ways The Five Practices are being utilized to help people and their organizations grow and prosper. Many thanks to all who volunteered their time and energy to help all of us continue to learn about leading more effectively. Lesson Three: Never underestimate the power of a shared vision. Sadly, our world today is filled with a lot of dissension, divisiveness, anger, and fear. There is much more shouting, grandstanding and bickering than there is listening, questioning, and understanding. It is happening between countries as well as within countries, as we in the US know so well. At the Forum there were people from all around the world, with many deep differences.

There were recogniza.