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Archive for the ‘Relationship Building’ Category

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Selling Tickets to Your Field of Dreams

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 15, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to differentiate managing and coaching. Reading time: 2:34.

         You’re a newly minted leader. Yet you still think of yourself as a manager and others regard you as a coach. You are confused—almost as confused as the professional sports world must be where nomenclature seems off track.  After all the title of head honcho in basketball and football (The Coach) is different from the head  honcho in baseball (The Manager).

       Let’s clear up the confusion and better focus your role as a manager, as a coach and as a leader.

       Dusting off the baseball history books we discover the origin for calling the on-the-field boss the “manager.” Turns out before there was a front office in the world of professional baseball, the on-the-field manager also conducted management duties from selling tickets to booking hotel rooms for players on the road.

      Meanwhile the baseball manager delegated the on the field team operations to an uniformed team captain. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lighting the Way: From Coaching to Mentoring

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 12, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to strengthen your ability to develop future leaders. Reading time: 4:26.

The Mentor’s Spotlght

       You’re a coach, a mentor and a leader. Are you wearing three different hats or one hat three different ways?

        The most effective leaders know they are wearing — Three Different Hats —for three very different situations.

       They also know, understand, and can apply the difference with a distinction which helps them become even more instructive and constructive as a coach; even more influential and insightful as a mentor and even more energizing and galvanizing as a leader.

            Indeed all three disciplines –coaching, mentoring and leading— light the way for others. Coaches light the way with headlights. Mentors light the way with spotlights. And leaders light the way with limelights.

 Coaches Light the Way with Headlights

        Envision yourself driving down a highway at night. Your headlights light up a specific area – just ahead . The road is well mapped with clear and distinct destination points (responsibilities, objectives and indicators).

      Like a headlight, a coach illuminates a short-term goal, defines the expected performance and clarifies the necessary outcomes. The coach knows precisely where that road leads. That’s why the coach by definition must be the employee’s immediate supervisor. The coach is as vested in the result as fully as the employee is.

      Much like a coach of a sports team, the coach is figuratively with the employee at all times on the playing field –helping, guiding, steering, encouraging, consulting , observing and adjusting that well-defined road ahead.

     Read the rest of this entry »

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Making Every Day Pay Day

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 8, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

 Here’s an idea to leverage your leadership influence. Reading time: 3:11.

                                               Leaders get stronger by lifting others up.

Robins in a nest

Robins in a nest

         Maybe that’s why Albert Einstein said only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. And Winston Churchill said: “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what give.”

       Leaders give of themselves to make every day pay day. The more they give, the more they get, as author Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

        Championing others a leader invariably unearths hidden resources, leverages differences,  fosters greater productivity and mines increased profitability.

       But in championing others,  leaders know only too well that their date book is as important as their checkbook;  their time as valued as their money. Read the rest of this entry »

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Making New Connections On Your Train To Success

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on September 26, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you  leverage your contacts. Reading time: 2:54

         The little girl dove into the recently chemically cleaned swimming pool and rubbed her eyes. “Oweee, Oweee,” the 4-year-old screamed. “My eyes burn.”

        Chlorine can be caustic by itself and in high concentration dangerous. But if you combine chlorine with sodium the resulting compound is something you enjoy on popcorn and hundreds of others foods. Something very tasty and zesty. Normal table salt. Sodium chloride.

       Same elements. Different connection. Different association. Different affinity.

     Making new connections. That’s what leaders do. They make connections that turns potentially dangerous elements into creatively productive solutions.

   New Connections

       They take something pure and add a new connection, a new element, and make what was once pure even more valuable and viable in much the same way sugar looks brighter in a blue package.

      Consider sterling silver. It is not pure silver. Pure silver would be too soft for use as table ware. So sterling silver is mixed with copper. Leaders make that critical and creative copper connection.

      Consider 24-karat gold. It is not pure gold. Pure gold would be too soft for use as rings. So 24-karat gold is mixed with copper. Leaders make that critical and creative copper connection.

     In their drive to make those connections, leaders feed—and feed off of Read the rest of this entry »

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Treating Others Fairly Not Equally

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on September 19, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to reinforce relationships in times of stress. Reading time: 2:49

           Your high profile, highly-regarded top employee embarrasses your company –and himself—in a late night fender bender that clearly broke expected rules of behavior. Other employees are lobbying you to make sure you dole out the proper punishment “to serve as an example to all employees,” they say.

Catcher Yogi Berra bear hugs pitcher Don Larsen to celebrate Larsen’s  Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series

          Of course you have to enforce the rules. No favoritism. Black and white issue. Done deal.

         Not so fast.

        That’s why the most effective leaders focus more on the shades of gray. Penalizing without paralyzing future performance.

        Consider how Casey Stengel, a gray leader extraordinaire, handled this situation as the manager/leader of The New York Yankees.

       It happened during the spring exhibition season a few months after his star performer – Don Larsen – pitched the first (and still the only) perfect game in a World Series. Larsen wrapped his car around a lamppost at 5 am in St. Petersburg, Florida –then known primarily for its high concentration of retirees. Larsen was more embarrassed than hurt.

         Newspaper reporters asked Yankee leader/manager Stengel if he was going to fine the star pitcher. Stengel smiled and said: “Anybody who can find something to do at 5 am in St. Petersburg deserves a medal not a fine.”

       Stengel diffused the situation with humor when he realized the minimal impact of the situation: no one hurt, minor damage etc. and the opportunity to reinforce his supportive relationship with his star player.

       Of course, Stengel opened himself up to critics who charged favoritism. But Stengel recognized his role as a leader was to treat all of his direct reports FAIRLY not equally. Read the rest of this entry »

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