Posts Tagged Leadership
Three Cheers to the OPM!
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Coaching, Collaboration, Commitment, Communication, Employee Engagement, Goals, Performance, Productivity on June 22, 2011
Last week, the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Training and Development Wiki was presented with an Innovation Award by the Training Officers Consortium (TOC). The award is included in the TOC’s Annual Distinguished Service Awards Program which recognizes trainers and training programs that have made a valuable impact within the Federal Government. The Innovation award nominees include individuals, teams, or agencies that have implemented a new training strategy to achieve desired performance results.
An agency that is filled with self leaders is an agency with an empowered workforce.
”The Federal Training and Development Wiki is another example of how OPM employees are innovating every day,” said OPM Director John Berry. “The Wiki improves efficiency and best practices for agencies by providing a forum to share ideas and training tools. This will help agencies address their learning and development needs to best support the mission and career success of federal employees. I am proud of our program experts for developing this award-winning tool.”
The recognition was announced just as the OPM released the 2010 Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP) report to Congress that found an increase in the number of women and minorities in senior-level positions in the federal government.
High performing organizations rely on new and existing leaders to utilize training programs and tools, like the Federal Training and Development Wiki, to support and encourage their direct reports and get them involved in building the agency’s vision. When leaders incorporate skills that blend goals with ongoing communication, they are actively engaging individuals and increasing their level of motivation and commitment to the organization.
What leadership programs have you encountered that have made an impact on your productivity and performance?
Good Leaders Versus Bad Leaders
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Attitude, Direction, Leadership, Leadership Development, Morale, Motivation on May 5, 2011
Star leaders inspire great performance in others.
As I watch the daily news and read several articles about the recent announcement of Osama bin Laden’s capture and demise, I start to think about how people use or misuse the power of leadership in their lives. Osama clearly used his power as a leader within the terrorist network for evil and wrong doings and led his team to carry out heinous acts against our country. I have the fortunate opportunity to work for a leader that uses his incredible leadership skills to unleash the power and potential of people and organizations for the greater good. One of his recent messages to the company was so profound and brought to light how much leadership really does impact people’s behaviors.
“Last night as I watched President Obama’s announcement about the killing of Osama bin Laden, I really felt the sadness in his heart. You know, to actually give the orders to have to try to kill someone else. I just thought once again about the good wolf and the bad wolf and how we all have both of those and the one that wins is whichever one we feed, and unfortunately bin Laden chose to feed the bad wolf on an ongoing basis. It’s such a tough job being president of this country. I’m so glad he said that our war is not against Islam, it’s against people who are out to kill others and out to harm others—people who are really feeding the bad wolf.
So leadership really does make a difference. It can make a difference in a negative way and it can make a difference in a positive way. All of us are leaders—anytime you try to influence the thinking, beliefs, or development of someone else, you’re engaging in leadership. So which wolf are you feeding today? I want to feed the good wolf today. So take care of yourselves. Life is a very special occasion, particularly if you reach out and help someone else.” Ken Blanchard
What leadership techniques does your manager use to unleash your power and potential?
Letting Go of the Government of the Past
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Change, Direction, Leadership on February 2, 2011
Effective leadership is more about managing the journey of change than announcing the destination.
In his State of the Union address on January 25, President Obama discussed the opportunity to reorganize the government to make it more organized and better equipped to support American competitiveness. He stated, “We should give [citizens] a government that’s more competent and more efficient. We can’t win the future with a government of the past.” Obama’s plan is to realign organizations to better prepare for a more competitive global economy. The President noted that a major overhaul of the government hasn’t taken place since the middle of the last century.
It’s apparently time for change! This is why President Obama chose Jeffrey Zients, Chief Performance Officer (CPO), to lead the reorganization effort. The first order of business is to examine trade and exports to determine how these processes can be improved and allow Americans to be more competitive in the global economy.
With the number of changes being initiated in organizations and the pace at which these changes need to be implemented, change leadership is a critical competency for leaders throughout the organization. Indeed, it is often said that the only sustainable differentiator is the capacity to successfully lead change.
When leaders learn to lead change effectively, they can expect to
- Minimize resistance to change and gain buy-in from those being asked to change
- Minimize the typical drop in morale when a change initiative is launched
- Minimize the amount of time required to achieve their desired goals
- Build an adaptive organization that successfully initiates and implements change on an ongoing basis
A study conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies outlines the challenges organizations generally face that demand effective change leadership. Learn what Blanchard uncovered about what happens with most change initiatives in this article on “Leadership Strategies for Making Change Stick.”
Fail Forward, Fail Fast, Fail Fruitfully
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Communication, Direction, Leadership on November 3, 2010
How many people can say that they danced around their living room upon hearing that they would be managing a staff of 13,000 people? That’s exactly what Martha Johnson did when she found out she was nominated to be the administrator of the General Service Administration (GSA). Johnson was nominated back in 2009 and was appointed on February 7, 2010. Martha has experience within the GSA which gives her an advantage on improving processes within the agency. When news of her returning to the GSA got out, retired workers from the agency said they would return to GSA now that she was back.
In her tenure, Johnson has led a presidential transition agency review team for GSA, served as GSA chief of staff, and helped direct a change in corporate culture within a 90,000 person organization. She has also directed the GSA in becoming the second leading agency for enabling government telework, an effort that has been top of mind across the government.
Martha has implemented a management tool called “slams” that she hopes will help empower people to make decisions more efficiently. The concept involves a leader gathering all the people involved in making a particular decision in one room, closing the door, and directing everyone to solve the problem. She has also started to conduct slams online and hopes to continue using this process to lead her team. “You make a decision, then you have to tell 15 people and they have to tell 15 more, and you have to articulate it all over the place,” she says. “I believe you need to be right next to the people making those decisions in real time so you don’t stall on making the decisions collectively.”
A key strategic leadership skill she feels all leaders must have is clarity when they are working in their organization and when they are working on their organization. “Fail forward, fail fast and fail fruitfully, because you never learn or innovate if you always do it right,” Johnson says. The Ken Blanchard Companies mirrors that belief. They define leadership as the capacity to influence others by unleashing their power and potential to impact the greater good. When leadership focuses only on goal accomplishment, it becomes only about results. Leaders need to take the approach of what is best for all involved. Leading is about serving; it is not about personal gain or goal accomplishment. Leadership should have a much higher purpose.
What skills do you possess as a leader that instill great leadership within your agency?
Watch this short clip about how great leaders create productive conversations with their people.
Who are the Net Generation Leaders?
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Culture, Information Technology, Leadership, Leadership Development on October 27, 2010
We’ve all read about the “Next Generation” and issues the government will soon be facing with so many Boomers retiring. However, are you familiar with the “Net Generation?” This term is applied to those who have never known a time without the internet. These young workers fall into a group that have helped parents with their computers, are social network gurus, and are over 80 million strong. The Chief Information Officers Council issued a report describing the future of Information Technology in the government and the impending demand to recruit talent from the Net Generation.
The agencies hoping to recruit from this talent pool must keep in mind the balances that Net-Gener’s are looking for in the workplace. According to Don Tapscott author of The 8 N-Gen Norms: Characteristics of a Generation, there are eight patterns of behavior associated with this generation. The eight norms are:
- Freedom
- Customization
- Scrutinizers
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Entertainment
- Speed
- Innovation
In addition to recruiting from this generation, agencies must also place important focus on on-boarding, training, and retention of the Net-Gener’s they hire. More than likely, it will be the Baby Boomers that will be training these new hires and handing down years of knowledge and expertise. Bringing people together from a wide variety of different backgrounds creates tremendous opportunities but also some challenges. Agencies can benefit from the new perspectives and possibilities that diversity brings if they are able to unite people with a common set of values and goals. If not, the result is misalignment and disorganized inefficiencies as people go off in different direction-based on their own individual backgrounds.
Read more about these critical leadership skills that can help retain the talent that agencies are searching for.
Addressing a New Wave of IT Concerns
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Information Technology, Leadership on October 20, 2010
The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council will be hosting the 20th Annual Executive Leadership Conference next week in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. The theme of the event this year is Delivering Transformation and will feature key issues affecting government’s use of information technology. Leaders attending this conference will have the opportunity to learn from and network with thought leaders and speakers in the government sector.
This event could not take place at a better time! Security concerns have been top of mind with initiatives in cloud computing, social networking and virtual agency collaboration. A compromise of confidential information shared behind the firewall of the public sector would be disastrous. So how can IT leaders help their teams be successful at squashing all of these security concerns?
Ken Blanchard, leadership expert, explains that the announcement just says where you’re heading but the real work begins when you start to manage the journey. You can listen to Ken’s perspective on “managing the journey” by clicking here.
You can also learn more about the Executive Leadership Conference here.
My Agency is the BEST!
Posted by Kristina Marzullo in Attitude, Commitment, Employee Engagement, Employee Passion, Engagement, Leadership, Leadership Development, Management, Morale, Productivity, Results on September 2, 2010
The Best Places to Work results were posted today and topping the charts is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Following the NRC, in the 2nd and 3rd best place to work in the federal government, is the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Employee satisfaction increased in 68% of federal organizations.
The survey, conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI), was sent to over 263,000 civil servants to determine employee satisfaction and commitment across 290 federal agencies. The agencies are scored in a number of categories including training and development, effective leadership, teamwork, and strategic management.
An analysis of the results showed that, for the fifth time in a row, leadership was the main reason why many of the agencies’ overall scores greatly improved. The results from the leadership category reflect how much importance employees place on having effective leadership throughout the agency.
How can agencies improve an individual’s commitment and performance within an organization? A whitepaper on employee passion published by The Ken Blanchard Companies includes eight factors that reflect on what employees need to create a positive emotional state of mind.
So how is your agency improving passion in the workplace?
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