Possessing certain leadership skills and characteristics may perhaps allow a leader greater success. Research has shown that personal leadership characteristics are linked directly to leader behavior.

Leadership characteristics affect three specific attributes:

What is Leadership?  

How is leadership developed? What leadership skills are most responsible for generating the greatest amount of productivity from your human resources, a prerequisite for making a good company great? In short, in order to be a leading company, what leadership skills should you be seeking in the people you entrust to manage others?  

Have you ever presented a potentially unpopular idea to your team, and the reaction you received across the board was, “this will never work!”? If you are like most of us you forget your leadership skills and respond back your telling mode to convince your team members right away why the change is a good idea.

But instead of being reactive and attempting to sell your employees on the idea of liking the change, you must instead let them openly resist and vent until they repeat themselves. Really? We want to hear their heartburn and complaints when we present a new idea? Yes! The key takeaway is:  We want to!

It has been awhile since I have had some time to sit down to write an article and during this time I have had the chance to reflect on the different types of toxic leaders or employees within an organization. Many of our readers have asked, “What types of toxic leaders or employees are there?”

It would be so easy to say that one size fits all, but, there are many different types of toxic leaders and employees. Toxic behaviors are distinct and multi-faceted. So, I thought I would write a series of articles that focus on the different types of toxicity that we face in our work places. The first one that will be focused on deals with the narcissist. I have chosen this as my first topic since it is a difficult one to tackle.

It has been said that self-leadership and authentic character are critical to being an effective leader. Self-leadership is being true to one's character. Authentic character reflects truth to others. If you set an example from the heart, a leader creates unbelievable outcomes. From loyalty, to motivation, to productivity – an authentic leader influences others to be their best.

Just over a month ago, Jeremy Lin, the starting point guard for the New York Knicks, started the Lin-sanity craze that bewildered fans and even people who are not avid viewers or supporters of the NBA. As Jeremy continued to score more than 25 points a game, make awesome passes, and shoot game winning shots the Lin-sanity craze became an overnight obsession.

Considering Jeremy's excellent personal performance, here are the top 5 leadership lessons we can learn from him.

In today’s competitive world, an organization that is successful is a learning organization—they invest in employee engagement and in leadership development. Toward this end, progressive leaders use a learning curve (see below) when working with their teams to present priorities and tasks in such a way that the information will stick.

Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you discuss a topic and you have to go over it again and again? You will love using the learning curve to stop this frustration and increase your leadership skills.

The ability to influence team member leadership skills to meet organizational demands is a complex element of the overall leadership development picture. Leaders are tasked with effectively guiding organizational goal achievement while considering team member skills necessary to produce the desired outputs. A focus on balancing talent development with organizational goal achievement will place the company on a trajectory of achieving performance success.

Motivating team members toward goal achievement is no small task! Essentially, leaders should reflect behaviors that inspire and motivate people to change. Though motivation factors vary across an organization, there are many leadership qualities common to successful leaders. Leadership qualities that influence goal achievement include the ability to create vision, understand organizational culture, focus on performance development, and encourage innovation. 

It is difficult to get on the Internet these days and not see the ever-present Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook logos on every web page. While people under 35 seem to be taking the world’s transformation to social networking in stride, I am finding a trend of indifference or even resentment toward social networking among my fellow Baby Boomer Generation business leaders. 

The Kind of Comments I Hear:
“Oh this is just a passing fad - remember all those Internet startups in the 90s?”
“Facebook, that’s just for kids and people who have too much time.”
“All social networking is about is letting people know where you ate dinner last night and what you thought of the restaurant.”

The Power of Being Approachable

A leader that is approachable can alleviate a great deal of potential productivity inhibitors. A leader that is visible and receptive will often hear of ideas, issues, problems, and circumstances that would never come to light otherwise. Whether it’s solving problems or providing vision and direction leaders can be extremely effective by just being approachable.All too often unproductive situations arise because of poor communications between individuals and/or supervisors. At times these communication breakdowns become impasses that hinder productivity. As a result, team members feel there is no path to overcome or circumvent the difficulties.