Seth Godin on Leadership

Tribes Matter

Don't miss your call to lead change. With the guidance Seth Godin presents in this TED video, you can start a movement - connecting people who already have a yearning for something that matters to you and them. Why bother? Because as Seth says, What we do for a living now is find something worth changing. And...there are tribes waiting for you to lead them.

Social Media Revolution

Socialnomics

Innovation at the speed of sound and light...that is what social media affords you. Are you or your business riding the tail of the social media comet or advancing with the leading edge of sustainable socialnomics success?

Word of Mouth to World of Mouth Leadership

Leading From the Future as It Emerges

Leading Change, Leading Teams

Recently I was asked during a Leading Change Team Assessment what to do if you are not a born leader. My answer was this.

Whether you're a born leader or not, learn to listen -  deeply and without judgment to those whom you want to lead, influence, or inspire. Leadership is about shaping and shifting how teams pay attention and respond to challenges and opportunities.

Highly effective leaders listen to their teams at four different levels. Each level deepens their awareness of how they can lead collaboratively - fully tapping into the collective capacity of their teams.

Which level describes your dominant leadership listening mode?

1. Listening Level 1 - Downloading: What you hear confirms what you already know.
2. Listening Level 2 - Factual: You pay attention to facts and novel or disconfirming data.
3. Listening Level 3 - Empathic: You hear another person's point of view and know how they feel.
4. Listening Level 4 - Generative: You are quiet and present - connected to something larger than yourself - and hear possibilities as they emerge.

When you listen at level 4, you are comfortable not knowing what to think or say next. Your mind, heart and will are open to sensing what is possible. This is what Einstein was talking about when he said we can not solve the problem at the level of the problem.

Solution thinking naturally occurs during level 4 listening. Deep listening frees you and your team to imagine and discover what's possible. When you lead from the future as it emerges, you empower team collaboration and innovation that results in more sustainable business solutions.

Fear of a Fabulous Future

5 Invisible Barriers to Success

...for Smart Women Leaders

If you want to be more effective as a leader, take a close look at your inner leadership game. 

"To be effective leaders, we must first understand the field, or inner space, from which we are operating." ~Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges 

Be candid with yourself and identify what really gets in your way. For smart business women it is often one of these hidden culprits.

1. The feeling that while you deserve what you want, it would be unfair to others if you had it.
2. The need to deliver on your expectation that only perfection is enough.
3. A sinking feeling that you do not have what it takes to lead your team or business to the success you envision.
4. The belief that to be smart, engaged, energetic, happy, and enlightened you have to be 'superwoman'.

5. Deep-seated reluctance to ask for and accept the help you need to achieve your ambitious goals.

Leadership Limitations

Unexamined beliefs, feelings and frustrations only have power if you give it to them. So take back your inner leadership power with this simple exercise.

• What belief, feeling or frustration gets in your leadership way?
• If you were free of that belief, feeling or frustration, what would be better for you as a leader?
• What do you gain - if anything - by not letting go of it?
• Who would you be as a leader without it?
• What 3 small steps could you take - starting now - to release your leadership limitation?

Decide to take immediate action. With each step consciously let go of the limitations lurking in your leadership blind spot. Your awareness of new possibilities will increase. This creates more space for you to play a bigger inner leadership game.

"Successful leadership depends on the quality of attention and intention that the leader brings to any situation." ~Otto Scharmer, MIT - Action Researcher in Innovative Learning & Leadership

10 Characteristics of Savvy Business Owners

When it comes to sustainable success, business owners who have built and run thriving enterprises share these 10 entrepreneurial characteristics.

1. Set and play by their own rules
2. Easily and seemingly effortlessly overcome obstacles
3. Turn negatives into positives
4. Persistence, focus, and unstoppable drive
5. Strong values of integrity and ethics
6. Belief and commitment
7. Risk taking
8. Fearlessness
9. Listen to their intuition
10. Seek mastery

Benchmark your entrepreneurial spirit using a scale of 1 to 5 - with 5 being the highest - and see where you net out as a savvy business owner.