LEADERSHIP MINTS

Bite-Sized Ideas to Freshen your Bottom-Line Thinking

Winning With Your (S)Peak Peformance

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on May 24, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to leverage your public speaking skills. Reading time: 2:38.

          You’ve got your business degree in hand and your job is going well. Now it’s time to focus on getting that promotion.

         Your climb to the top begins the first time you step UP onto a podium and exercise your power to persuade others to follow you.

          In stepping UP onto the podium you get your chance to convince upper management of your discipline and integrity to represent the company — in general.

          In stepping UP onto the podium, you reinforce your staff’s  commitment and conviction to work more collaboratively and productively — in particular.

          No wonder that alumni from the business school at the University of Michigan credited their communications skills more than their business or financial acumen in earning their first promotion.

         To help you focus on developing your powers of public speaking, let’s scan the history books for what other leaders say about the potency of Podium Power:  For example, with your public speaking skills sharpened you can become more durable than a king. Read the rest of this entry »

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Partnering Power: How Sweet It Is

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on May 23, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you strengthen your partnerships. Reading time: 4:42.

           As a reporter with the Miami Herald in 1975, I met Jackie Gleason in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when he was promoting a professional golf tournament, the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic. He was honing his golf swing to host President Jerry Ford in a celebrity round with legendary entertainer Bob Hope and the greatest professional golfer at the time, Jack Nicklaus.

          And that sunny February morning Jackie Gleason taught me a leadership lesson I never expected and never have forgotten over these last 37 yearsl

Jackie Gleason as bus driver Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners.

Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in The Honeymooners

      The Great One. That’s what the television entertainment world called Jackie Gleason. And no wonder. After all, he hosted  television programs in the 1950s-60s that dominated the airwaves —from The Honeymooners to The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS — and made loud-mouth Ralph Kramden the most famous bus driver in New York.

       In fact,  the first time I heard Jackie Gleason’s voice live and in person on the golf course, he sounded more like the boisterous and cantakerous Ralph Kramden in the The Honeymooners who would yell at his wife: “Straight to the Moon, Alice.”

        Jackie Gleason was mad as hell. He stood about 50 yards away from me on the driving range. Gleason yelled at my photographer to stop taking photos (“Hey Pal, not now!”).  The Great One demanded to be left alone to concentrate on his golf swing.

      By the time I could intervene and introduce myself as something more than a pesky fan, I figured Ralph Kramden would also kick me “straight to the moon” when I requested an interview. Maybe I could hope he’d settle for just making one of his patented threats: “One of these days… POW!!! Right in the kisser!” I was wrong. In fact, Jackie Gleason taught me a lesson in leadership that surprised me, especially after I saw first hand how self-absorbed and arrogant he appeared to be based in his personal behavior during a practice round of golf. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mothering Mother Nature’s Butterfly Effect

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on May 22, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help become more aware of your working environment. Reading time: 3:15.

B29 Bomber Cockpit at a Vintage Aircraft Show

           The pilots were stunned.  They were flying way too fast, more than 100 miles an hour faster than their B-29 bombers has been designed to fly during  World War II.

      The unplanned speed played havoc with their aim: fewer than five percent of their bombs accurately hit their planned targets.

     And no wonder when nearly 100 American airplanes found themselves inadvertently swept up into the jet stream — the ribbon of fast flowing air at high altitudes. Then at 30,000 feet those pilots were flying under the influence of the outside environment as never before and they had to adapt or fail.

            Leaders know the feeling of being pushed along by outside forces beyond their control, just like those B-29 pilots.

      And that’s why the most effective leaders are those who constantly monitor and adapt to their ever changing working environment.

         That means leaders have to be very aware of what others may take for granted –like the wind in particular and Mother Nature– in general. Read the rest of this entry »

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Commitment: Investing 100 % Into Each Other

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on May 21, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help strengthen your ability to lead with others. Reading time: 2:47

        Quick quiz. For an effective partnership, how much of an investment in more than financial terms should each partner make: 50-50 percent sounds about right, doesn’t it? Not to a leader like General Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the United States and its allies to victory in the Desert Storm in 1991.

      Leading demands complete and total investment in commitment from both parties.

      Forget the quid pro quo 50-50 (percent) focus that by definition places limits on each partner’s investment in time and attention to the business at hand.

     Instead think 100-100 percent total commitment from both partners, advises Schwarzkopf.

      Think of your business partnership as if it were a marriage. Your business marriage demands total and complete attention to each other. Your business marriage demands  a 10-fold increase in attention from both partners for each and every product or service given birth through this union.

      At least that’s the way Schwarzkopf sees it. He compares a partnership in business to a partnership in marriage. “Marriage is not 50-50 (percent) . That’s baloney. It’s 100-100 percent. And in raising kids it’s 1000-1000 (percent)!

     Read the rest of this entry »

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Leaders Are Great Kissers Intentionally

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on May 18, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you concentrate more fully and perform more effectively. Reading Time: 2:56.

        So what kind of a kisser are you? Your kissing style could be a measure of your leadership capability. Consider this scene in Robert A. Heinlein’s novel : Stranger in a Strange Land:

“Anne tell me something. What’s so special about the way Michael kisses?” Anne looked dreamy and then dimpled. “Michael gives a kiss his whole attention.”

“Oh, rats! I do too.”

           Anne shook her head. “No, some men try to. Men who did a very good job of it indeed have kissed me. But they don’t really give kissing a woman their whole attention. They can’t. No matter how hard they try, some parts of their minds are on something else:

“Missing the last bus.

Their own techniques in kissing.

Worry about their jobs.

Or money. Or something.

         “Now Michael doesn’t have any technique. But when he kisses you he isn’t doing anything else. Read the rest of this entry »

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