Leadership Means Climbing The Mountain
(One Post & 21 Bonus Links)

© Irene Becker, Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge™  | Reach-Resonance-Results
3Q Leadership™ Blog- 25,000+ Social Media Followers & Growing! 

Lead Forward! The call to climb the mountain has never been greater.
If you listen, you will hear it. Our ability to climb it is REAL

Leadership is a trek around foggy corners, bluffs and terrain that challenges us beyond our wildest imagination; leading us where most people fear to tread. On good days, we move upward, forward and onward to new challenges, heights and accomplishments. On bad days, we may slip, fall, lose our balance and tumble backward.  On all days, leadership means learning, re-learning and failing forward with faith, hope, courage, integrity and humanity.  It means leading forward.

Leadership is not a tactic or a strategy; it is a commitment to climbing the mountain by honoring and empowering the best in our self and others.  It is a commitment to service above self rooted in love.  Love gives us the power to lead forward where others fear to tread. It is the fire that lights the indomitable power of our heart, mind and soul. Falling off the path, losing our grip and ability to negotiate difficult terrain and foggy corners occurs when we slip, slide or fall into fear based ego, hubris or arrogance.  It is corrected by self-awareness, humility and the conviction to embrace the love, the commitment to service above self that can take us forward.

True leadership is not about being nice, nor is it about being intimidating; it is about serving the greatest good, and empowering the best in oneself and others so that we can climb the mountain.  It means taking hard decisions and making the sacrifices necessary to negotiate foggy corners and challenging terrain with hope, faith, courage, integrity and humanity.  The imperative to build and sustain purpose driven leadership, to inspire purpose driven work, to build purpose driven communication and collaboration has never been greater.  Purpose equals profit on a multiplicity of levels, leadership is about tapping into our truest purpose and inspiring those we lead to do the same.

Leadership  is 3Q equation supported by courage that grows each time we align intelligence (IQ), humanity (EQ) and integrity (SQ); each time we use challenges, changes and strengths to  learn/re-learn, adapt and align best thoughts, best speech, best actions.   Leadership touches an emotional chord in others, as mirror neurons help us share our deepest emotions, our most heartfelt convictions.

Leadership means resetting the individual and organizational GPS,  by developing communities of purpose and a common language language rooted in the mutual objectives and shared values that create a bridge between cultural, personal and inter-generational differences.  It demands a relentless focus on climbing the mountain better and faster than ever before by using our minds, empowering our brains and aligning our hearts.  It means climbing the mountain by using  what is to create what can be; a better self, better teams, better organizations, better communities…a better world.

Lead Forward! The call to climb the mountain has never been greater.
If you listen you will hear it.

More on Leading Forward?  YOU Betcha!  Twenty Bonus Links:
Ten Practical Ways To Build Essential Success Skills At The Speed Of Change
The 3Q Leadership Skills You Need to Build NOW-10 Steps
Win the Race with Wolves:  Live, Learn and Lead Forward 10 Steps

An EQ Primer for  Effective Leadership-Management-Teambuilding
Top Leadership and Communication Posts 2012
The New Leader
Winning the New War
Women & Leadership :  Ten Critical Steps Forward for Women and Men
Building R-E-A-C-H™ (video:  3Q Leadership™ for Project Managers)
Rising to the Challenge Before Us (post and video)
Ten Ways to Lead Forward in Times of Complexity and Change
Leadership Means Developing a Community of Purpose 

More? YES…Great Guest Posts and Great Reads!

How to Improve Your Corporate Culture by Adriana Girdler
Lead Fwd with “Corporethics” by Pablo Fernandez & Yusuke Yamashita, PH.D
An Argument for Purpose-Driven Business by Carol Cone and Jackie Murphy
My Interview with Dr. Amit Nagpal on Enlightened Business and Leadership

Managing With A Conscience By Frank Sonnenberg
The Power of Communication by Helio Fred Garcia
The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
Full Steam Ahead by Jesse Lyn Stoner and Ken Blanchard

I am committed to helping smart people and organizations use changes-challenges-strengths to optimize and catalyze their potential to communicate & LEAD FORWARD.  Use changes and challenges to improve communication, management, leadership…career success?
Yes, the proof is in ten years of inspiring and outstanding results! 

Irene Becker | Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge™ |  IQ-EQ-SQ for Reach-Resonance-Results
Executive Coaching, Consulting, Training and Keynotes with a 3Q Edge™ 
Face to face and/or virtually by telephone, video conferencing or skype!
3Q Leadership Blog- 25,000+ Social Media Followers & Growing
irene@justcoachit.com  Twitter @justcoachit
Tel: (1) 416-671-4726   Skype: beckerirene

How To Improve Your Corporate Culture

Honored to host a guest post by one of Canada’s top business process & productivity experts,  Adriana Girdler, PMP, President, Cornerstone Dynamics   

Irene Becker, Just Coach It- | 3Q Leadership Blog-25,000+ Social Media Followers & Growing!

Resolutions  allow us an opportunity to reflect on the past and decide what and how we’ll do things in the future. Yours could be losing those stubborn last 10 pounds, eating well or spending more time with family and friends. Ultimately, our resolutions are about improving the quality of our lives.

Resolutions aren’t just for individuals though. Companies can (and should) look at the quality of life of the organization. By reflecting on the past year activities, we should ask, “How is our corporate culture doing?”

Why focus on corporate culture?

A positive corporate culture lends to a more productive and happy workforce, resulting in increased efficiency in the office. Why is this important? Because increase efficiency leads to increase productivity, which ultimately improves the bottom line. Have you ever seen an organization where the culture is negative and the company is doing really well? I haven’t either.

Negativity breeds inefficiency.

When corporate culture is ignored, like a dripping faucet, it may not seem like a big deal at the moment. As time goes by, the drip becomes more annoying, particularly late at night when the dripping sound amplifies and makes it hard for you to sleep. You’re tired and cranky the next day, making it hard to function. All this from a simple little drip of the faucet.

The same can be said for corporate culture. Over time, the little things become bigger and can create a negative environment, which hurts morale. If your employee’s morale isn’t positive, productivity and efficiency are likely also missing.

In order improve your corporate culture, you’ll need to examine it and put plans in place to allow it to grow. Positive corporate culture doesn’t happen by itself.

So how can you create a positive corporate culture?

Make it a habit to review your corporate culture yearly. Every year organizations hold strategy and planning sessions for their products. They put a lot of time and attention to ensuring they’re promoting their services or products according to their strategy. Why not include reviewing the corporate culture at this time too?

Make corporate culture improvement initiative a priority. Companies say they’re improving the culture but ideas and projects for culture improvement get lost in the shuffle of day to day business. Don’t let this happen to you. For tips and tricks, read my blog on how to prioritize.

Change your mind set from “nice to have” to “need to have” regarding corporate culture. This can be hard to do, especially if your organization hasn’t examined its culture before. But everything is possible when you realize the benefits of having a positive corporate culture.

About the Author:

Adriana Girdler is the President of CornerStone Dynamics Inc and an expert in business efficiency, helping leading corporations streamline internal processes to work smarter and improve productivity. Learn more about Adriana Girdler.  Connect with Ms. Girdler on twitter @adrianagirdler

More on Improving Corporate Culture?  YOU Betcha
The Individual and Organizational Imperative to DO Good
Meaningful Work:  Building a Management and Leadership Must
The Thriving Organization-Ten Powerful Steps
Ten Steps to Employee Engagement
Ten Ways to Lead Forward in Times of Complexity and Change
What is a Community of Purpose?
Leadership Means Building a Community of Purpose
7 Ways to Turn Conflict/Communication Problems Around
Good Business and Teambuilding | Our First Customers Are Our Staff and Teammembers
Three Toxic Team Members to Get Off Your Team
Optimize-Humanize-Monetize
The 3Q Leader-Building the 3Q Leadership Skills YOU Need Now

And, more…Great Read Excerpts and Reviews
Managing With A Conscience by Frank Sonnenberg
Business At The Speed Of Now by John M Bernard
The Power of Communication by Helio Fred Garcia
Full Steam Ahead by Jesse Lyn Stoner and Ken Blanchard

I am committed to helping smart people and organizations use changes-challenges-strengths to optimize and catalyze their potential to communicate & LEAD FORWARD.  Use changes and challenges to improve communication, management, leadership…career success?  Yes, the proof is in ten years of inspiring and outstanding results! 

Irene Becker | Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge™ |  IQ-EQ-SQ for Reach-Resonance-Results
Executive Coaching, Consulting, Training and Keynotes with a 3Q Edge™ 
Face to face and/or virtually by telephone, video conferencing or skype!
3Q Leadership Blog- 25,000+ Social Media Followers & Growing 
irene@justcoachit.com  Twitter @justcoachit
Tel: (1) 416-671-4726   Skype: beckerirene

Leadership Means Doing Good in the World
The Individual & Organizational Imperative to DO GOOD
© Irene Becker, Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge™  | Reach-Resonance-Results
3Q Leadership Blog

The individual and organizational imperative to DO GOOD in the world is clear. The implicit value of leaders who seek to serve, and organizations focused on creating value for all constituents is the only path to a better future. Companies that do not create true value for their employees, stakeholders, clients and communities will eventually wither and die. The secret to individual and organization success hinges on our ability to do good. Doing good means creating value for others.  Doing good means developing the Q skills the can help us use change, challenges and strengths to optimize potential, while developing the adaptability, agility and collaboration we need to survive and thrive.  Doing good means learning to adapt, learn and relearn while protecting the integrity and values that are fundamental to sustainability.  

Purpose equals profit on a multiplicity of levels. Our ability to feel good and do good is broken when the human substance, the noblest values that hold our world together are compromised.   Food was meant to make our body strong.  Life is a gift to be lived to its fullest.  Millions of people spend their intimate moments with a computer embracing virtual intimacy that is devoid of true connection.  It is easy, it is fast, but is it better than real human contact or connection? Some of stay in jobs that compromise our value system or to not engage our purpose and potential  because it is easier to stay with the devil we know than to move on and find a position that is in better alignment with our integrity…is it better?  Most of us live in apartments or houses that our great grandparents would have considered the lap of luxury, and yet too many of us have no real community and do not even know our next door neighbor.  We have more material comforts, but lack the emotional connection and sense of community and contribution that fills our soul. Is it better?   Corporate cultures are ailing; many are slowly dying as the focus on satisficing and on layers of bureaucracy that dim the human spirit makes finding meaning, value and purpose at work difficult for far too many.

If we do not engage our best self, do our best work and live our best life by enshrining our greatest values, our noblest ideals,  we create a bubble that will ultimately burst and plummet to the ground. Engaging our best selves, doing our best work and living our best lives means resetting the individual and organizational GPS; it means learning to USE change, challenges and strengths to develop the whole brain strengths, creativity, empowerment, initiative, collaboration and processes that help us LEAD forward by using the very changes and challenges we face as levers for the fire of human potential, the power of human values, the promise of great leadership.

If we do not reset the GPS and lead forward, we will fall backwards.  The business/material  and/or social success we have acquired will not break our fall, because we have compromised the seedbed of our humanity by forgetting that success and leadership must be predicated on our ability to DO good and create value for others.  Every great empire, fiefdom and corporation in recorded history has been destroyed by need, greed and ego.  The dark side of human character must be replaced with leaders, managers and collaborators who are focused on doing good, because greatness is truly a coefficient of goodness.

We can throw ourselves into the quicksand of negativity, envy, jealousy by deciding to forget the power that we each possess to make a positive contribution, to do something of value. But at the other side of darkness there is always light.  Light to recapture our power to create value and do good.  Light to engage our best self, do our best work and live our best life.  Power to make positive, value centered, soul centered choices.  Choices that will clear the fog of all that is wrong or the hail of militant mediocrity, greed or ego dominated choices that stand in the way of our living our best lives, doing our best work, developing our best organizations and communities.

Each small positive change, each bit of energy focused on doing good creates a ripple of value and integrity that in turn forms an ocean of hope and power for our self, our society and the world. If a butterfly in Tokyo can change the weather patterns in Los Angeles, what can our small actions each day, every way, have on our society and our world?   What would our personal and professional landscape look like if just 50% of us started each day with the intention to engage our best self, do our best work and live our best life? What would organizations look like if we they were focused on moving from cultures of satisficing to building learning and living environments that grow the trust, collaboration and potential of their people and constituents?

Each individual possesses the unique ability to make a positive difference, and leaders possess a titanic ability and responsibility to build the social, economic and intellectual capital that drives positive change, that creates well in the world. The fire of individual and organizational growth and well-being is not something we can touch, it is something we must feel and focus on; it is something we must build from top down with a sincere commitment to do good in the world.  Our greatest challenge and greatest strength lie in our ability to USE what is to create what can be; better selves, better leadership, better organizations, better communities.

More on Goodness Leadership?  YOU Betcha

Goodness to Greatness Leadership-7 Steps from Me to We
The New Leader
The Thriving Organization
What Does Leadership Really Mean?
Rising to the Challenge Before Us (post and video)
Leadership Means Building a Community of Purpose
Meaningful Work-Building a Management and Leadership Must
Ten Ways to Lead Forward in Times of Complexity and Change
Our Greatest Hope
The Secret to Peace and Prosperity

Guest Posts on Doing Good?  You Betcha
The Argument for Purpose Driven Business
Corporethics
Managing With a Conscience (Great Read Excerpt & Review)

I am committed to helping smart people and organizations use changes and challenges to optimize and catalyze their potential to communicate & LEAD FORWARD.  Use changes and challenges to improve communication, management, leadership…career success?  Yes!
Helping my clients build their 3Q Edge™ and develop the R-E-A-C-H™ that helps them lead forward smarter, faster and happier is what I do best!

Irene Becker | Just Coach It-The 3Q Edge™ | Reach-Resonance-Results
Executive Coaching, Consulting, Training and Keynotes with a 3Q Edge™ 
Face to face and/or virtually by telephone, video conferencing or skype! 
irene@justcoachit.com  Twitter @justcoachit
Tel: (1) 416-671-4726   Skype: beckerirene