A five-year study of leaders from business and the non-profit sector led leadership guru Warren Bennis to distinguish between managers and leaders. "Leaders do the right thing; managers do things right. Both roles are crucial, but management is more about skills, and leadership is more about character, integrity, passion, curiosity, daring, and vision. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led," he writes in Executive Excellence.

Bennis says leaders are not born but made. They need four competencies:

• Management Of Attention: Leaders find ways to create a message that gets transformed into something larger -- a vision or dream that they share with others. "People need something beyond directive words to follow," he says.
• Management Of Meaning: Leaders find ways to make their dreams apparent and alive to others. They make it real, through their communications, creating images that serve as headlines for the future.
• Management Of Trust: The main path to trust is reliability or constancy, so leaders need to be consistent in what they say and do. "It's what leaders fail to say and fail to do after they create the belief that they will do something that gets them into trouble," he warns.
• Management Of Self: High-impact leaders become comfortable with who they are not. They know their own skills and how to use them. They also learn how to face adversity and to take responsibility for failure.

A longstanding tenet of management and employee relations is to "praise publicly, correct privately." But Sharon Bar-David, a Toronto-based trainer, says that concept is flawed -- indeed, actually harmful -- in certain situations.

"When uncivil or offensive public behaviour takes place with no managerial response, employees could rightful conclude this behaviour is condoned. Furthermore, by responding in private, employers miss invaluable opportunities to set the standards for all to grasp and follow," she writes in Canadian HR Reporter.

To respond properly, managers have to get over their aversion to confrontation in the workplace. They also have to act quickly, as these incidents -- a sneer, or a joke or gesture that crosses the line -- can happen very fast. In doing so, she urges you to watch out for three mistakes that can occur:

• Avoid using "I" statements. Instead of saying "I was offended by that joke," state "jokes that focus on people's physical attributes are not appropriate in our environment." The reason is that the purpose of correcting offensive behaviour is to create common standards and to enforce organizational values.
• Don't use humour, as it can be misinterpreted. However, you can certainly try a light touch.
• Never dispute the accuracy of what has been said. If a derogatory comment is made about an ethnic group, don't respond, "Well, actually that is factually inaccurate…." It just deepens the offensive discussion that stereotypes groups of people, and could open the door to a debate that you lose. The behaviour is offensive, and that's the point.

Complexity can be inefficient and expensive. So with a shaky economy, Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt, on his blog MichaelHyatt.com, suggests attacking complexity, including these two prominent areas:

• The number of meetings: Be very careful about setting up routine meetings, because once they are in place they can take on a life of their own and be hard to eliminate. And re-evaluate every existing meeting, asking what the intended outcome is, whether everyone who attends is truly necessary, whether you could meet less frequently or for a shorter time to achieve the same outcome, or whether you can achieve the same outcome without the meeting.
• The value of your processes: Like meetings, organizational processes can take on a life of their own. Things that seemed necessary two years ago may not be today, so review processes with a critical eye.

It is considered a truism that if a service business has happy employees they will, as a result, have satisfied customers. But a study by Rosa Chun and Gary Davies, of Manchester Business School in the UK, reported in Harvard Business Review, failed to confirm that link after looking at 49 business units of 13 service organizations. Indeed, sometimes factors that increased customer satisfaction decreased employee happiness.

The professors stress that it is still valuable to have happy, satisfied employees. But you need to go further, engaging your employees with an explanation of why the organization wants satisfied customers and how best to accomplish that. "Simply being served by a satisfied employee isn't enough to win customer loyalty," they stress.

• The fatal flaw of small business web sites, according to marketing consultant Lisa Barone, is that they offer no reason to revisit. Add some dynamic or changing content that will keep people engaged and returning to your site. (Source: www.Smallbiztrends.com)
• When you delegate a task, you have not given away responsibility. You can let employees make all the decisions you want, but remember that you are still responsible. (Source: www.ManagingLeadership.com)
• Most people live in their inboxes -- taking direction from the e-mail that flows in on what to do -- or live according to their to-do list. But productivity consultant Dan Markovitz says you should live in your calendar instead, assigning all your tasks and projects to times in your calendar, so you can work in a steady and sustainable pace on what needs to be done. Keep your calendar -- not your inbox or to-do list -- front and centre. (Source: www.TimebackManagement.com )
• Instead of presuming you know what a prospect or client needs, begin your conversation by asking what their situation is like today -- without trying to shape the conversation to fit your offering -- and what goals they have for the future or what the perfect future might be. (Source: www.ManageSmarter.com)
• Ten ways to reduce human error: Check your processes. Train people properly. Set time frames realistic to tasks. Allow for regular breaks. Instil a sense of pride in the work. Spot mistakes before they happen. Check everything. Accept you can't eliminate all glitches. Don't let a blame culture develop… but make the consequences clear. (Source: Management Today)

6. Q&A with 8020Info:   Resetting Goals         Top

Question: We set what we felt were conservative targets at the start of the year but it's clear we won't meet them. I believe goals motivate people, but these goals now seem impossible, so people have given up and I'm reluctant to talk about them. How can I get staff motivated again?