It is possible to assess your leadership potential and using our full GAPPS3 leadership assessment this has proven to be remarkably accurate.  I’ve included a link to a free test below. Please do note that this is not as accurate as our full GAPPS3 assessment but again, it shows some accurate results.

Do be aware though that you are not falling victim to one of the myths that many leaders in the middle face according to John C. Maxwell in his excellent book 360Leader:

1. The position myth – “I can’t lead if I am not at the top”
2. The Destination myth – “When I get to the top I’ll learn to lead”
3. The Influence myth -”If I were on top, then people will follow me”
4. The Inexperience myth – ” When I get to the top, I’ll be in control”
5. The Freedom myth – “When I get to the top, I’ll no longer be limited”
6. The Potential myth – “I can’t reach my potential if I am not the top leader”
7. The all-or-nothing myth – ” If I can’t get to the top, then I won’t try to lead”

Test your Leadership Potential

Join me over at the John Maxwell Team website for more information.

As a John Maxwell Certified Coach, Trainer and Speaker, I can offer you workshops, seminars, keynote speaking, and coaching, aiding your personal and professional growth through study and practical application of John’s proven leadership methods. Working together, I will move you and/or your team or organization in the desired direction to reach your goals.

“What’s better today?”

Coaching

In a recent Minute with Maxwell message, John defined a coach as “…someone who can come  alongside of you and can correct you without criticizing you in a way that is negative in your life.  A coach is a word that means ‘come alongside’.  Come alongside and share together, teach, listen and lead.”  My coaching involves the ability to understand you: to live where you live, think how you think, and understand your perspective.  From this benchmark, I will place another perspective on top of yours stretching and growing you to gently see a different way.  As a certified John Maxwell coach, I can see what you are going through and things you are going to go through. Coaching is foreseeing, paving the way, coming alongside and adding value to you.

Categories of Coaching

Individual – one on one private and confidential coaching

When I am working one on one with a client, it is my number one objective to help you reach your purpose, vision and goals by working through John Maxwell’s programs specific to your needs. Together, we will create a strategic plan that is a powerful way for you to gain clarity through a weekly process including interaction and accountability.

• What are you doing to invest in yourself?
• What are you doing to invest in others?

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Albert Einstein

Group – small setting onsite or via webinar and video technology

When I am working in a group setting, although it’s not singular in nature, having the entire group’s input in thinking magnifies the richness of the discussions and results in developing solutions that are above and beyond what any individual can create.  The cohesive bond that is formed empowers each person to develop the leader within and shine in a safe environment that nurtures the group as a whole. It is an experience unlike any other and follows the same premise as an academic think tank.

“The goal of coaching is the goal of good management – to make the most of an organization’s valuable resources.”
Harvard Business Review

“Between 25% to 40% of Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches.”
The HayGroup (USA) 1999

“Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanto, Harvard Business School

Please contact me to discuss your coaching needs.

Speaking/Workshops/Seminars

“Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.” William A. Ward

As a Certified John Maxwell Coach, Trainer and Speaker, I offer customized presentations to fit your individual or team’s needs and budget such as:

• 10 minute briefing
• “Lunch and Learn”
• Keynote speech for your company sponsored event
• Half day and full day workshop/seminar
• In-house corporate training
• Executive and personal retreat
• Partnership Summit

I will provide effective team communication and structure that is important for foraging relationships equipping your team with the proper attitudes to develop leaders within.  We will work through goal setting and communication exercises that will bring cohesiveness to your group ultimately increasing productivity due to the positive influences each member will have on the group as a whole.

In addition, I will at your request incorporate your organization’s meeting theme, mission/vision statement or build on your existing training schedule to best fit the needs of your group. Please contact me.

Masterminding

There is synergy of energy, commitment and excitement that participants bring to a mastermind group. My facilitated groups offer a combination of masterminding, peer brainstorming, education, accountability and support in a group setting to sharpen your business and personal skills. By bringing fresh ideas and a different perspective, my masterminds can help you achieve success.

Key Benefits of a Mastermind Group:

• Increase your own experience and confidence
• Sharpen your business and personal skills
• Create real progress in your business and your life
• Add an instant and valuable support network
• Get honest feedback, advice and brainstorming
• Borrow on the experience and skills of the other members
• Study the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, create an action plan and have the group hold you accountable for fulfilling your plan and goals
• Receive critical insights into yourself
• Optimistic peer support in maintaining a positive mental attitude
• A sense of shared endeavor – there are others out there!

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you.” Henry Ward Beecher

Contact me for a mastermind group in your area.

Dan Appleman has written a handbook for developing teen leadership. Based on over 20 years of real world experience, you will find ideas, techniques, examples and even sample statements to guide you. Developing Teen Leadership will not only help you develop leadership skills in yourself and others, but you will find ways to help teens help other teens on their leadership journey.

The challenge for most parents, teachers and teen advisors is first understanding what they believe about leadership. If we think leadership is telling people what to do, it is difficult to guide their understanding of what real leadership is. They learn best by example.

Appleman offers over 50 valuable thoughts that impact your effectiveness with teens. Here are just five:

via Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog: 5 Leadership Lessons: What You Need to Know about Developing Teen Leadership.

Unfortunately, most bosses have not established that fact with those they “serve.” They don’t deliver positive feedback on an ongoing basis and only take the time to say anything when they have some critical points to deliver. Feedback should not be thought of as an event. It should be ongoing and in real-time. Sure that’s more difficult and time-consuming, but it is what you signed up for.

via Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog: Be a Coach, Not a Critic.

When a new organizational effectiveness ‘truth’ comes along there are two common responses.

The first response is an unreflective jump on to the bandwagon. Managers keen to improve their own and their organization’s performance will often take on faith the validity of the novel approach – only to be disappointed when it doesn’t bear the fruit it promised.

The second response is an unreflective dismissal of the new approach as more “soft-skill psychobabble.” This is understandable, given the number of management fads that turn out to be more hype than help.

So, how should a manager respond to the call to focus on increasing the level of employee engagement in their organization or team? Is this another flash-in-the-pan concept designed to make consultants rich? Or is this a critical strategy for increase profit and productivity that has substance?

According to the findings of such research firms as Towers Watson, Blessing White, Gallup, and Sirota Survey Intelligence, companies with high levels of employee engagement outperform other organizations in regards to:

creativity and innovation,

retention,

customer focus,

employee productivity,

customer satisfaction, and

profitability.

Different research organizations classify their findings in different ways. David Sirota’s formulation is a simple and useful model. His research suggests that there are three factors that, together, create strong engagement: the employee’s sense of (1) fair treatment, (2) achievement, and (3) camaraderie.[i]

via NeuroEngagement: Using Insights from Brain Science to Heighten Employee Engagement | Leader’s Beacon | The Leadership Experts.

“A friend of mine manages asset risk for one of the world’s largest corporate pension funds.  Under his skilled leadership, the fund grew in value last year.  In addition to understanding the difference between real investments and bubble investments he never loses sight of the fact he’s managing the retirement funds of real people.  He’s also the guy who runs back to the restaurant to grab the jacket you forgot on the back of your chair.

His humility and good will toward others, combined with the fact he can calculate a balance sheet to a gnat’s eyebrow in his head, makes him leadership material in my book.

He was recently promoted to the executive management team after more than a decade of jumping through rigorous succession management hoops…

read more

Anyone can achieve mediocrity. After all, it’s hardly difficult to do so.

As Christmas approaches we hear familiar platitudes that ’tis the season to be happy. Does this mean that for the rest of the year I am meant to be miserable and depressed? Now Christmas is a wonderful time of year and I do find it extra joyful because for me it has real meaning. Yet there seems to be an increasing number of people who just do not appear to be motivated: They have, or at least show, no passion for what they are doing; there’s little joy in their heart and the driving force for doing anything is extrinsic.

Imagine that you have to collect water from a well several miles away from home. All you have to carry the water is one metal bucket. You walk to the well and join the queue to fill your bucket. Already tired from the long trek, you fill your bucket with fresh, clean and crystal clear water. Hauling the bucket out of the well you discover a hole in your bucket and your precious water is leaking out. Now you must run with the bucket to get it back home as quickly as possible, desperately trying to plug the hole with your hand, stemming but not stopping the flow.

Half way home, the water in your bucket is nearly gone and now you have a dilemma:

1. Continue and possibly reach home with nothing but an empty bucket? It’s Ok your family will understand that it really isn’t your fault and they can last another hour or so without…
   
2. Find a welder to fix the bucket and start again? Now where is the welder…?
   
3. Return to the well and try again? If you run faster this time and hold the bucket just so…
   
4. Ditch the bucket, find and buy a new one with money that you don’t have? Or pinch someone else’s…
   

Your internal motivation, the passion you have, your joy, is like the water in the bucket. You are the bucket.

As we progress through this life, there are ample opportunities to make holes in your bucket of joy. It’s so easy to hold a grudge, resent someone (anyone!), and blame others for your holes. Practice this well and you too can qualify for being the person everyone else wishes to avoid for fear of being contaminated by the rust of your soul.

Too harsh? Maybe… check yourself on the “Bucket of Joy” checklist:

Choose the left hand statement OR the right hand (there is no in-between).

Add up the right hand choices and subtract the total of left hand choices.

• Score 8 – You’ve already passed this LeaderShift on to someone you know needs it
  
• Score 4 or 6 – (You chose option 2 or 3 above?) Pretty decent; plug the holes you already know are there.
  
• Score 0 or 2 – (option 4 above?) Time to seriously consider what you want to achieve in life and get passionate about it.
  
• Score -2 or -4 – (You also chose option 1 above?) Any friend left? Go talk to them and ask for help.
  
• Score – 6 or -8 – (Option 5? Yeah, I know it wasn’t there but you did say “give up”? Seek help, and I mean now!
  

Leadershift! Plug the holes in your bucket Everyone blames someone for their lack of success or achievement. Even when you blame yourself. The reason (aka excuse) usually starts with “if only…” “If only my parents had____________________” (fill in the blank) “If only my boss would ____________________” “If only I had ____________________________” Whatever you filled in for whoever… it’s gone, you didn’t, they didn’t, and she won’t! Learn from the experience and choose to accept. Forgive them (or yourself) and let go of the past. Now choose to overcome the setback/disadvantage. Anything that you chose on the left side – what does it take for you to get over on the right side? In my coaching and training the most common response to the question “What do you want to be?” is “Happy”! “What do you want for your kids?” – “For them to be happy!” Is that you? OK then, do it! Be happy! You can choose to be happy. Go on put a smile on your face and say (out loud) “I’m happy!” Think happy, choose happy, be happy. “But you don’t understand John…” I’m sorry. You lost all control of your brain. You mean someone else is responsible for your thinking? Go to the well. Fill your bucket with joy, plug the holes you can now and run like the wind. Oh, and the welder… give me a call and I’ll tell you where you can find Him.

Joy to the world! Merry Christmas and a Blessed 2011.

The key was reducing “that painful period” where managers have a staff member who has already left, “or is leaving and is therefore disengaged”, Bupa Group Australia’s national recruitment manager Rebecca Houghton told HR Daily.

“If you can shrink that period, then the managers feel more confident about allowing that gap to open up in the first place, and that’s what we’ve been able to deliver for them – we’ve more than halved it.”

via In-house recruitment system boosts development opportunities and engagement | All articles.