Leadership on Speed

our blog has moved!!

After four years of calling Typepad home, we have moved our blog to Wordpress.  We thank you for continuing to follow us and hope that you will re-subscribe to Leadership on Speed on Wordpress.  See you there!

Continued Success!

We are now one of the TOP 50 LEADERSHIP BLOGS!

Leadership on Speed, LLC was notified this week that our blog is now ranked as one of the Top 50 Leadership blogs according to Blog Rank.  We wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU to our readers and supporters for making this possible!  We appreciate your continued feedback and topic ideas and are committed to continuing to bring content that serves you best.

Continue to be great!

the social media trap

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo etc, etc.....

Once the exclusive haven for friends and family, social media (Social Media 2.0) is now growing as a marketing platform for businesses.  You can follow, update and tweet (i.e. microblog) your status as often are as little as you choose.  The idea is to build your tribe - a natural community of followers who are drawn to your message, service or product.  As you communicate items of interests, your tribe passes that information on to their circle of influence and some of those folks may also choose to become a part of your community.

Sounds cool, right?

After all, you post a few things a day to your social media sites and customers just show up! 

Hmmmmm.....

Maybe.

I know I'm treading out on the skinny branches here,  but don't get me wrong. What I love about social media is that I get invited into others lives in a more personal way.  I get the privilege of getting good information but I also find out who has kids, or who is into sports or other tidbits that allow me to see glimpses of the "person" and not just their work.  

The trap is that the allure of the tribal customer community can also defocus entrepreneurs from actually running their business.  I see businesses tweeting twenty, thirty, forty times per day just to "be seen" by their community.  If you're "business" is social media, that may work well.  If not, not so much.

What happens is that in an effort to be "seen", businesses sacrifice genuine and authentic information for quantity and ultimately the valued information they once provided becomes watered down and invaluable to the members.  Business owners also become so focused on growing the tribe that they forget to be human first.  Ultimately - the tribe is lost or credibility is lost.  As folks figure out more and more ways to monetize social media outlets, this phenomenon will only get worse.

If you aren't in the social media business but you are spending 2 hours or more per day posting and following, then you've most likely taken your eye off of the real ball. Don't forget that social media is  just one prong of a marketing strategy and cannot grow a young or start-up business as effectively as you can when you get out from behind the keyboard.

By the way, if you haven't jumped in the social media pool at all, I do invite you to come on in.  The water is fine - just don't visit the deep end before you're ready! 

If you're active in social media, do you find yourself getting distracted?  Is it helping to grow your business?

You were born to be great.

YES, you can!

are you a leader or a manager?

To lead people, walk beside them ...
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best, the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate ...
When the best leader's work is done the people say,
                                 "We did it ourselves!"
                                                  - Lao-tsu

I am fascinated by the subject of leadership and the nuances between management and leadership.  Many of my clients are in management positions or, as entrepreneurs, are leading their own organizations,  As a West Pointer, I have studied much on the subject of leadership and am still enthralled when we in Corporate America confuse leadership and management.  Are you a manager or leader? Leaders manage but rarely do managers lead.  If you are a manager and concerned about whether you can transition into a leader, never fear.  While some are born with innate leadership qualities, leadership can also be learned.  According to the work of Bernard Bass, there are three basic theories to explain how people become leaders.  The first two apply only to a small minority.  These theories are:

• Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the Trait Theory.
• A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory.
• People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the Transformational Leadership Theory and is the most widely accepted theory today.

In future posts, we'll continue to look at the topic of leadership.  In the meantime, I invite you to visit Leadership Now - a great blog I came across that is dedicated to leadership and providing resources to develop leadership skills and understanding the leadership issues we face today.

YES, you can!

network, network, network!

I'm sure you've heard the old adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."   Well, in todays business world, it is about what you know and who you know.  Whether you are a job seeker, an employee or an entrepreneur, your success is connected to being connected - in other words network, network, NETWORK!  What you know matters, but not unless you meet the people that can advance your vision and chances are you can't meet the right folks if you're hanging out on the sofa!  Clearly networking is a must in certain situations such as when generating new business or when job seeking but what happens after you get the job?  This is where most of us abandon all of the recent months of hard work and relationship building.  You've just spent days or weeks combing your Rolodex or database to let people know you were in the market, joining networking groups and attending meetings, meetings and more meetings and then what happens?  Don't let it all go!

Are you aware that statistically, you'll be back in the job market in 3-5 years? Given that fact, why not keep up your networking?  Even if you've found your dream job, an even bigger possibility might be just around the corner OR your employer may go through a down turn that leaves you once again in the hunt.  Wouldn't it be nice not to have to start all over again?

Check out JibberJobber.com.  It not only supports your job hunt, it also helps you manage, expand and prioritize your network long after you've landed that great job!

YES, you can!