Lead From the Heart

Is it possible that you have a pattern of behavior or a personality trait that greatly limits your effectiveness as a person and as a leader? Could you have an unconscious way of acting – particularly under stress – that unwittingly thwarts your dreams of moving up the ladder? If you consider yourself part of the human species, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing at least one thing that undermines your true greatness as a manager. So the goal for this podcast is to help you discover what your personal derailleurs might be, and to learn how to lessen their negative impacts. Few people are better qualified to provide insight and advice on this topic than our guest, Dr. David Dotlich. A certified psychologist in career development and life planning, he’s been named one of the Top 50 Coaches In America – he’s also co-written 12 best-selling leadership books including the one we  discuss in great detail on the podcast: “Why CEOs Fail” The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb To The Top – And How To Manage Them.” Today, David is President of Pivot Leadership – a consulting firm he started and later sold to Korn Ferry. He advises CEOs and Corporate Boards, and his list of clients includes Walmart, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Aetna and Best Buy. Amongst his many prestigious former roles, David was a founding partner of CDR International which was later acquired by Marsh McLennan. He was an Executive Vice President at Groupe Bull S.A, a Paris-based computer manufacturer with 45,000 employees, an EVP at Honeywell, the President of Mercer Delta Consulting – and a Professor at the University of Minnesota business school where he earned his masters and PhD. As David says, “most leaders succeed or fail based on how well they work with others and how well they understand themselves.”  This podcast is devoted to helping you excel at both.   The post Dr. David Dotlich: Why Leaders Fail: The Top Behaviors That Can Derail Your Career appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

More than anything else today, what people want from their employers & leaders is to be given a safe & respectful place in which to work. That’s the conclusion of new Pew research which shows 89% of American workers rank these needs highest. Yes, employees also expect their leaders to be honest, ethical – and to reward them fairly with pay & benefits. But their ultimate happiness, engagement & sense of well-being all prove to be directly connected to how they are made to feel. And what most people want to feel in their jobs is secure, valued, appreciated — & supported as a human being. In light of this research, workplace leaders are wise to ask one big question. “What are the specific things I need to do to ensure these employee needs & expectations get met?” In her new book, “Bring Your Human to Work: Ten Sure-Fire Ways to Design a Workplace That is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World,” author Erica Keswin provides many compelling answers.  She draws on research that shows it often boils down to simple but thoughtful gestures that make the biggest impact.  Making meetings more productive & inspiring. Giving people greater clarity around when their workday ends. Being nudged to take all of their vacation. Ensuring stated organizational values are lived in the halls, not just hung on the walls. If you’re looking for state-of-the-art ideas on how to support your employees (human beings!) & and to keep them healthy, motivated & productive, listen in & plan to take notes! The post Erica Keswin: How To Design A Workplace That Is Good for People & Great for Business appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

While we might consider the time in which we’re all living a more enlightened age, the word “heart” still carries a lot of negative associations when it comes to workplace leadership. Tied to traditional leadership wisdom, we cling to the belief that caring and supportive management is an inherently weak idea that cannot drive productivity – and so we go on leading in old & less effective ways. But recent scientific discoveries prove our understanding of how to most effectively motivate human performance is patently wrong. More to the point, new science shows the heart plays a profound role in influencing human behavior – and that workplace managers who care about, nurture and proactively support their people can expect to be rewarded with unimaginable productivity and success in return. For nearly three decades, the Institute of HeartMath has been researching the human heart – an organ many people believe is just a pump that circulates blood throughout our bodies. Led by its chief researcher and co-founder, Dr. Rollin McCraty, HeartMath has discovered that the heart is actually a source of great intelligence that plays an enormous role in shaping our choices and decisions.  And the feelings and emotions that people experience every day at work actually have a major impact on determining their level of engagement, commitment and initiative. While many managers remain convinced that managing with some degree of fear and stress is a potent way of achieving goals, HeartMath’s research proves they couldn’t be more wrong.  As Rollin McCraty thoroughly explains in this podcast, when people repeatedly experience negative emotions, their cognitive effectiveness instinctively shuts down. They make poor choices and have less energy to commit to the job at hand. Yes, it’s a huge paradigm change to think that organizations that put the needs of employees first – before those of customers, managers and shareholders – could be a winning formula.  But the science that proves it has become irrefutable. In addition to his work at HeartMath, Rollin McCraty is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.  His team has done joint research projects with Stanford University, Claremont Graduate University and several other universities around the world. His work has been featured on CNN, ABC World News Tonight, NBC’s Today Show and the Discovery Channel. And his studies have appeared in numerous scientific journals in addition to well-known publications including Prevention, Natural Health, Men’s Fitness and American Health. After you finish listening to this podcast, you’ll be convinced that the idea of leading from the heart isn’t just the wisest thing a leader can do – it represents the future of workplace leadership. The post Rollin McCraty: Why The Heart Is The Driver Of Optimal Human Performance appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Hear the word “rebel” & we immediately think of troublemakers & outcasts – people who end up with bad reputations for being non-conformists. But after a decade of studying rebels (especially rebel leaders), Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino says we’ve got it all wrong. In her New York Times bestselling book, “Rebel Talent: Why It Pays To Break The Rules At Work & In Life,” Gino says that “rebels prove to be the masters of innovation & reinvention. They’re the ones who change the world for the better with their unconventional outlooks. Instead of clinging to what is safe & familiar –  & falling back on routines & tradition – rebels excel by challenging the status-quo.” Sharing a remarkable list of real-world examples, Francesca Gino explains why breaking rules enriches every aspect of our lives. And she saves her best insights for leadership – and why it’s irrefutable that the most successful, innovative & admired managers around the world are intentionally “Rebel Leaders.” The post Francesca Gino: Why It Pays To Break The Rules In Life, Work & Leadership appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

In 2012, Gallup made the startling announcement that employee engagement across the globe was in crisis.  We learned that only 30% of American workers were fully committed in their jobs – and the numbers were even worse in most other countries. So here we are six years later and we’re left to wonder: “Has engagement gotten any better?” “Did most organizations fully commit to creating more supportive workplaces?” And, “Has the employee engagement metric held up as a true barometer of organizational success?” Few people on the planet are better prepared to answer these important questions than Gallup’s Dr. Jim Harter. Nearly 30 years ago, Harter created Gallup’s on-going employee engagement & wellbeing studies. And on this podcast, he taps into compelling data and insight to bring us all current. As you’ll hear, millions more employees around the world are now engaged at work. And, provocatively, the country of Singapore took their low engagement so seriously they’ve more than doubled the nation’s engagement scores.  And just this week, The Drucker Institute published its annual list of the 250 World’s Best Managed Companies by stating that the organizations making the biggest leaps on the rankings also had the biggest gains in employee engagement. As you might imagine, engagement hasn’t gotten better everywhere. So listen to this rare opportunity to hear Jim Harter explain what the most enlightened companies are doing to inspire their workforces – and the advantages they now hold over competitors who’ve yet to take engagement seriously. The post Jim Harter: Gallup’s Chief Scientist Explains Why Employee Engagement & Caring Cultures Differentiate Thriving Organizations appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like. But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employee engagement across the world – not to mention other distressing trends on employee stress, health and well-being – they began to ask themselves whether they were part of the problem. Faculties and administrators reflected upon how successful they’d historically been in preparing students to manage other human beings in the workplace. And they collectively concluded that their traditional methods of preparing future leaders was entirely deficient and required a massive reinvention. Fast-forward to today: At Yale’s graduate school of business, students take a mandatory class on “purpose.”  At Harvard, MBA students are being taught groundbreaking science on how to achieve personal happiness. They’re also reading about Chinese Philosophers and how spiritual wisdom can guide their management decisions.  And these same kinds of curriculum changes are happening at Wharton, The University of Michigan – and business schools across the world. In what proves to be a remarkable & compelling discussion of why all of this is happening in MBA Programs, podcast guest, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor, Leah Weiss, shares why a class she teaches called, “Leading With Mindfulness And Compassion” has become the top elective course in her school’s MBA program. Weiss is the author of the brand new bestseller, “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity And Embrace The Daily Grind,” and if you want a glimpse into the future of workplace leadership – not to mention fabulous insight into practices and skills that can help you to better “Know Thyself,” listening in will prove invaluable. The post Leah Weiss: Why A Class On Mindfulness & Self-Mastery Is Now Stanford Business School’s Top Elective appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Everyone has self-limiting behaviors, for the simple reason that we’re all human. But frequently, what holds women back from obtaining the next raise, promotion or job tends to be different from men. In their new bestseller, “How Women Rise,” legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, and Sally Helgesen – the person Forbes Magazine named the world’s top women’s leadership expert – partnered up to explain which bad habits all too frequently hold back women. But in this podcast that was intentionally designed to benefit all managers, Sally explains why men and women often approach leadership differently, and how their unique set of bad habits can derail their desired growth. Leveraging a thirty-year career as a researcher and author – while tapping into all she’s learned from Marshall’s four-decades of coaching male executives – Sally Helgesen shares much surprising and invaluable insight on how to both identify and overcome the unintentional behaviors that unnecessarily impede our progress.   The post Sally Helgesen: The Bad Habits That Limit Our Career Growth & Success appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

We’ve all worked for managers who sapped our talent, energy and commitment while always needing to be the smartest person in the room. And if we’ve been lucky, we’ve also worked for leaders who brought out the better angels of our nature – people who used their own intelligence to amplify the talents and capabilities of every person around them. So what’s the mindset difference between leaders who unwittingly diminish other people and those who inspire employees to stretch to deliver results that surpass expectations? That’s the focus of my discussion with Liz Wiseman – consultant to many of the world’s great technology firms, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Multipliers.” One thing we can all agree upon is that the world desperately needs leaders who can elevate others – genius makers who optimize talent and give people space to do their best work. And in this truly dynamic chat with Liz, we break down all that it means to be a “Multiplier” kind of leader – and the vital few behaviors which separate them from managers who not only diminish other people but also their own success.   The post Liz Wiseman: Leaders Who Are Multipliers Make Everyone Smarter appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Podcast 008: Kim Powell Many of us have it in our mind that very few people (including ourselves) have what it takes to become a CEO. We conjure up images of oversized personalities like Steve Jobs & Jack Welch and assume that’s what a successful CEO looks like. But in her new best-selling book (and a book Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink selected as one of their top nonfiction books of 2018),“The CEO Next Door,” Kim Powell shows us that CEOs like these are really outliers. And not only don’t you need to be a charismatic, extroverted visionary like Jobs and Welch to become a successful CEO, you don’t need an Ivy League degree or an impeccable resumé either. Leveraging state-of-the-art analytical tools, Powell and her co-author, Elena Botelho, processed the performance of 2,600 executive leaders before concluding that what truly characterizes high-performing chief executives isn’t at all related to their pedigrees or intellect. Instead, what they all had in common was a mastery of four specific leadership behaviors. Whether it’s your dream to one day run your own company – or if you just want to greatly elevate your own leadership effectiveness, this podcast introduces all four of these important behaviors, and helps you understand how to immediately apply them in your own career. The post Kim Powell: Master Just Four Leadership Behaviors And You Could Be CEO Material appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Podcast 007: Dr. James Doty Dr. James Doty: Stanford Medical School Professor Says The Heart Matters More Than The Brain In Leadership As a world-class brain surgeon and Stanford University Medical School professor, Dr. James Doty is nevertheless certain that “the best way of influencing human beings to excel in their jobs is to intentionally and positively affect their hearts.” These surprising words are found in his New York Times best selling book, “Into The Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest To Discover The Mysteries Of The Brain And The Secrets Of The Heart – and amplify recent medical discoveries that prove the heart plays a far greater role in influencing human behavior than most of us have ever known. Dr. Doty comes on the podcast to explain how the mind and heart are connected – and what this means for the future of workplace leadership. But as the Director of Stanford’s Center For Altruism And Compassion Research – and a physician to employees in the Silicon Valley, he brings surprising insight into what employees truly want and need in exchange for work. And even though companies like Google and Facebook are known as great places to work, Doty’s take isn’t quite as glowing. “What people really need and want,” Doty says, “is love.” How he landed on this conclusion is the underlying theme of his discussion with Mark. The post Dr. James Doty: Stanford Medical School Professor Says The Heart Matters More Than The Brain In Leadership appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.