The One Thing EVERY Leader Needs to Be!

In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays Mitch, a man going through a midlife crisis who joins two of his friends on a cattle drive in the southwest. While on the drive, Mitch asks Curly, in Jack Palance’s Academy Award winning performance as the cowhand, “Do you know what the secret of life is?” Curly holds up one finger and tells him, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s@#t.” When Mitch ask him what the one thing is, Curly tells him, “That’s what you have to find out.”

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Leadership Impact Assessment Results – Supervisors & Managers

This is the last in the series of data analysis from our Leadership Impact Assessment (LIA) data. This analysis is for Supervisors (11% of the population) and Managers (45% of the population). You can read the LIA overview and see all of the results at MeasuringLeadership.com. We cannot stress enough the importance of including some measure of accountability in your organization’s leadership training. Without a plan for an empirical, quantifiable and repeatable tool for measurement, an organization cannot track leadership progress or determine if the program is yielding an adequate return on investment.

“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.”
– W. Edwards Deming, Data Scientist

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Leadership Impact Assessment Results – Vice Presidents

Recently, we began releasing analysis from our Leadership Impact Assessment results. In the last newsletter, we analyzed results for the C-Level executives in the data. It’s important to measure the outcomes from leadership training, but most organizations don’t incorporate it for one reason or another. Without any way of measurement, the individual and/or organization can’t empirically know what needs to be improved.

“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.”
– W. Edwards Deming, Data Scientist

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Measuring Leadership: A Case Study

In an ongoing leadership development training program, we conducted 3 cohorts of the Elite Leadership Training (ELT) program at a hospital in Chicago. The second cohort included leaders who reported directly or indirectly to the organization’s C-Level and other top executives to the leaders, who participated in the first cohort. The second cohort was the largest and the one which yielded the most data to analyze, which is the subject of this case study.

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Leadership Development Programs Need to Be More Accountable

Many believe that leadership growth is not something that can be quantifiably measured . Leadership experts regularly expound on how well their leadership development training works without any proof to substantiate their claims. When asked about how they know it works, the answers typically fall into 2 categories, “We can tell” or the dreaded, “We believe it worked.” Neither of these are acceptable to an organization or an individual that has spent their time and money for the training. With the right tool, a well-designed leadership development training program can easily be quantifiably measured.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
– Peter Drucker

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What is the Path to Elite Level Leadership?

We all know when we are around an elite leader. They are the ones who light up a room by their mere presence. They are the exceptional leaders that people want to work for, people want to hear speak, and people want to know. It’s easy to identify elite leaders by talking to the people that work for and with them. If you listen closely, you’ll here how much of an impact they make in their organization. Their people will readily run through a wall for them. If you can’t meet them in person, read about them on social media. They’ll be the ones not just with the most ‘Likes’, but with the most comments about them from people who currently and previously work for them, which shows their engagement.

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Reflecting on 2021 and Preparing for 2022

Each January, I like to reflect on what I accomplished in the last year and how those actions have prepared me for the upcoming year.

Reflecting on 2021

Last year was a very big year for me and my leadership training. I had more than enough work to keep me busy. I also wrote new courses on visualizations and storytelling for a couple of universities. I spoke virtually for several conferences and webinars during the year. The highlight was “Ten [Healthcare] Leadership Lessons from the Hamilton Musical” I presented for AMN Healthcare. It was a topic I had been contemplating for a few months and happy to have a chance to develop and present it. It was well received by their participants and has been presented to other healthcare and non-healthcare organizations throughout the year with great reviews.

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