Should we measure leadership by popularity?

“The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” What departments and/or managers do people in your company clamor to get into?  What drives this clamor? I’ve seen it before. No one wants to work in finance, but everyone wants to be in marketing. Or everyone is trying to figure out a way to work for manager A instead of having to report to manager B. What is driving the popularity of the department or the person, and should we pay attention to it?  Is the number of people who want to

Before You Can Measure It, You have to Define it: What is Leadership?

We’re talking about measuring leadership here at Horizon Point this month.  In an increasingly prove-it-to-me through data world, one of the things that we don’t do a good job of measuring, and I wonder if we ever really will, is leadership.   It’s so complex. I think part of the reason we have trouble measuring it is because we have trouble defining it. What is leadership? What is great leadership? Most people will tell you that leadership is some form of influence.  It’s getting work done through others. True, but what do we want to accomplish because leadership is at work?

Measuring Leadership- How Many Hurdles Do You Have?

“If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it.” Peter Drucker   When you talk to people about selecting anything, especially people or talent, they are usually going to advocate for a multiple hurdles approach. This means you don’t just look at the resume and hire based on it, you have several steps in your hiring process all of which come together to help you make the best hiring decision. In measuring training effectiveness, we have Kirkpatrick’s model (a multiple dimensional approach) by measuring 1. Reactions (did they like it?), 2. Learning (did they learn something?), 3. Transfer (did

How to Handle Mental Health Issues in the Workplace

I had a reader send me a suggestion for a blog post a little over a month ago. It said: “With the terrible shooting in VA yesterday, maybe an article on how HR can better handle identifying, coaching, counseling & later termination of disgruntled employees if coaching is not effective. I am sure HR departments are concerned about their own employees. Just thoughts.” With all our content written for the month, I told him I’d add it to the roster even though this shooting would be old news. The sad thing, though, is that I silently thought there will be

Why does employee engagement matter?

I’ve been rambling on this month about how to drive employee performance.  If you missed the run-down so far, you can check out the posts here: What You Pay Does Matter 3 Steps to Winning A Best Place to Work Award 3 Steps for Driving Employee Engagement through Personalization But why does it matter? Why would you or any organization want to pay competitively, win a great place to work award and/or drive employee engagement through personalization. We’d argue first that it is simply the right thing to do. But this reason alone won’t keep you in business. However, doing