The eXpansive Leadership Model (XLM) - - - - - - How eXceptional Leaders Achieve eXtraordinary Results Under Pressure

Greg was organized, likable, and communicated well. He was promoted to director of finance after three years as a mid-level manager. When I interviewed his managers, they said that they always knew what to do because Greg excelled at clarifying objectives and expectations. Team meetings ran like a Swiss watch. His managers told me that Greg included them in decision-making and that he delegated well. He also fostered an environment of creativity and openness to change. What a leader! But then…

The economy worsened and the CEO demanded more productivity. That’s when cracks in Greg's leadership armor began to show. Three of his middle managers failed to perform under the increased pressure. They missed project deadlines, were unresponsive to their colleagues service needs, and failed to engage their own team members in dealing with the difficult times. Complaints about poor leadership from their own front-line supervisors escalated to Greg's deaf ears. Employee morale plummeted and turnover skyrocketed. Craig finally counseled his three managers, but they didn’t improve because he failed to hold them accountable for implementing an improvement plan. A year after Greg was promoted... he was fired.

Are You Ever Strong to a Fault?
Greg’s problem was “lopsided leadership” – the tendency to overuse a strength (i.e., to be strong to a fault), especially under stress. Leaders who over-focus on their strongest style(s) are like muscle-bound bodybuilders who don’t stretch. They’re inflexible, rigid, and unable to adapt to the stress of change. How often does this happen to you when you’re under pressure?

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman states, “It’s a world that demands constant adjustment and does not tolerate leaders who are unable or unwilling to build up their weak muscles—or who overuse their strong muscles.”

Based on my review of hundreds of studies that included more than 171, 000 leaders, I discovered that knowing or relying on your strengths is not enough anymore. What got you here won’t get you there. You need to avoid overdoing your strengths (and shore up your weaknesses), especially when you’re feeling stressed.

So, when are you strong to a fault? What leadership skills are you underutilizing these days? How well are you leading under pressure?

Read the rest of this article, and how to apply the XLM to help you eXpand, by clicking this link: http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

Let me know how you're doing. I'd love to hear from you.

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

Eleven Tips to Interview and Hire the Best

On average, fifty percent of newly hired employees leave a job within the first seven months. The cost of this turnover is to be between 48 percent and 61 percent of the employee’s salary. How much does this expensive problem cost you?

Here are 11 practical tips that will help you improve your interviewing and hiring practices:

1. Understand the costly implications of poor hiring skills.

2. Update the job description of open positions with input from those who truly know the position.

3. Avoid forming an early opinion of the candidate and subsequently searching to confirm that opinion throughout the interview.

4. Structure your interview using the depth approach.

5. Take notes during the interview.

6. Interview for the few skills that produce results based the job analysis.

7. Train those who conduct the interviews to do it well.

8. Evaluate the interviewees using a behavior-based scoring sheet.

9. Minimize the influence of references.

10. Avoid panel interviewers unless the position requires performing under pressure in front of others.

11. Conduct pre-screening on those competencies that research confirms truly make a difference in performance (e.g., conscientiousness, emotional intelligence, IQ, learning agility...)

These are the keys to interviewing and hiring the best. Use them to increase morale, productivity, and retention.

For additional information or more tips, go to:
(http://davejensenonleadership.com/HowLeadersInterviewandtheBestfortheJob.html )

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com

References

1. Patrick J Kiger; When people practices damage market value, Workforce Management, June 3, 2006.

2. Pulakos, Elaine D; Schmitt, Neal; Whitney, David; Smith, Matthew; Individual differences in interviewer ratings: The impact of standardization, consensus discussion, and sampling error on the validity of a structured interview, Personnel Psychology, April 01, 1996.

3. Lombardo, M. M. and Eichinger, R. W. (2000). High potentials as high learners. Human Resource Management, 39, 321-329.

4. George Hollenbeck and Robert Eichinger; Interviewing Right -- How Science Can Sharpen Your Interviewing Accuracy, Lominger international, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2006.

How Leaders Interview and Hire the Best

The cost of turnover for a typical employee is between 48 percent and 61 percent of the employee’s salary, as discussed in a previous blog ( http://davejensenonleadership.blogspot.com/2009/06/six-hiring-mistakes-good-leaders-make.html ). In that blog, I also revealed the six most common mistakes leaders make during the interviewing and hiring process. These errors are why an average of 50% of all new hires leave during the first seven months. Let us now turn our attention to avoiding these mistakes and hiring the best fit for the job.

The eXpansive Leadership Method (XLM) is a tool to help you interview and hire well. As seen below, you can use the XLM to frame your approach to the hiring process. Adapt this process to suit your environment to hire better candidates, improve productivity, lower turnover, and decrease costs. If you’d like to read how to execute each step, click the link below or paste it in to your browser:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/HowLeadersInterviewandtheBestfortheJob.html

Apply the XLM to Interview and Hire the Best

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com