Author: John Baldoni

Why do you need confidence?

Here’s what Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write in their book, “The Confidence Code for Girls”: “Confidence is what you use to help you do anything that seems hard, scary, or impossible. … Confidence is what gives you a boost for everyday challenges as well.”

While that advice may be intended for girls age 8 to 14, it’s equally applicable to all of us, no matter our gender or our age.

If you want to improve your confidence, says Kay, you need to push yourself. Such an approach could be useful to managers. While overconfidence is an issue for some people in authority, getting into a position of authority requires that you manifest a sense of confidence.

Confidence comes from a sense of accomplishment — all that you have accomplished in your life and career.  If you want to succeed further you will need to learn to accept new challenges.

Here are three questions you can ask yourself about confidence.

1. What do I want to achieve next? Focus on a goal that you want to accomplish. Consider what you will do to achieve it. Analyze the steps you will take to achieving your goal.
2. What will I do if I encounter resistance? Plan ahead for challenges. Consider how you will face them. Do not underestimate your ability. Know in advance where to find help.
3. What do I expect to learn about myself? Achieving a goal will be worthwhile, but so too, will be what you learn from the effort.

Confidence is rooted in accomplishment, but it grows through risk and failure, and the will to persevere.

First posted on SmartBrief on 9/12/2019

Purpose is essential to living and leading with fulfillment. But how do you find your purpose?

Purpose emerges from doing what you want to do in ways that deliver fulfillment.

For a leader, fulfillment comes from the process and joy of leading others. Learn more in this video.

First posted on SmartBrief 9/06/2019

I am sucker for the Great American Songbook — the great songs written from the ’20s through World War II.

While I enjoy the melodies mostly, sometimes the lyrics of a song will grab me.

Such is the case with “Pick Yourself Up,” with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and music by Jerome Kern.

Perky and upbeat as the melody is, the lyrics challenge us to take charge of ourselves when we are feeling down and out, or up against a big challenge.

Now nothing’s impossible, I’ve found for when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

The message of this song is resilience. All of us get knocked down from time to time. The question is: what will we do about it? The song has a right response.

Don’t lose your confidence if you slip, be grateful for a pleasant trip,
And pick yourself up, dust off, start over again.

Resilience is a theme that echoes throughout history. Every successful person has overcome his or her share of adversity and become stronger and often wiser because of this.

Resilience is something we need to employ in real time. It’s the spark that challenges us to get back up again and face the challenges of the day.

Focus on what you have accomplished thus far in your life. Think about your strengths. How have you survived previous challenges? What have you learned from them? Take pride in what you have achieved. It will steel your soul.

First posted on SmartBrief on 4/26/19

Some bosses like to be in charge. Totally.

We call them autocrats.

“Companies used to be able to function with autocratic bosses,” wrote Harvard professor and author Rosabeth Moss Kanter. “We don’t live in that world anymore.”

The fallacy of autocracy is that it is efficient. In reality, it is not. Oh, it may work for a time, but only when the boss is fully engaged and fully in charge. People around the boss derive their authority by their proximity to the boss, not necessarily their ability to get things done. When the boss is away, the organization shuts down.

Worse, autocracy is not sustainable, not merely because of the lifespan of the boss but also because all power is centralized.

Leadership is nurtured by inclusion — not because it’s a nice to do but because it’s a must-do. Autocratic bosses bear the weight of the enterprise on their shoulders. While they may entertain outside counsel, the operative word is “entertain.”

Autocracy by nature is exclusionary. It chokes off the life force that comes from working with other people.

Down with autocrats. Up with leaders who share their power.

First posted on SmartBrief on 11/25/2017

All of us have heard negative comments when a new initiative comes our way. We are good at coming up with reasons for avoiding new work. It’s part of human nature. So if this is true, then why not address the concerns in the room at the outset?

Let your people vent their feelings first before giving them a new assignment. It is good to confront the issues in the room — head on.

Once the explaining is done – by the manager, the employees or both — it will fall to the manager to make things happen by handing out assignments. Before doing so, however, it would be wise to ask employees what they can stop doing so they have time to focus on the new project.

Asking employees to give up work to take on other work is not novel. Such an approach is rooted in lean thinking, where you pare away tasks that have no added value. Eliminating them frees up employees to do more without adding to their workload.

One final note. Be positive. Position the new project as an opportunity.

So next time your team is tasked with a major undertaking, consider opening on a negative (allowing people to vent) as a means to getting to the positive (a fully engaged team).

First posted on SmartBrief on 11/10/2017

“I may not be very good at my job, but I know it makes me happier when I do it.”

That sentiment emerged from an interview that Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain, gave to Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Health care chaplains, as Egan describes them, are not affiliated with a particular faith. The job of hospital or hospice chaplain is to work with people where you find them in their life’s journey.

In a sense, chaplains are like coaches, those who help their clients find meaning in their work, their lives, and their relationships with others. At the same time coaches, like the rest of us, make mistakes.

The world needs self-aware people who know their limitations and resolve to improve. Living in ignorance is no solution. You need to learn from your mistakes.

First posted on SmartBrief on 10/27/2017

We can learn to make time to reflect.

Here are three questions to get you started.

1. Do our people know what’s expected of them? Make certain your people know their jobs and how they connect to the overall job of the organization. Be careful that when new assignments arise they are consistent with the mission.
2. Do our people have the resources to do their jobs effectively? Manage resources including time judiciously. Find the right balance.
3. Am I giving our people the support they need to carry out their jobs? The job of a leader is to point people in the right direction. Some need little of it; others may need too much.

Stepping away from time to time — either on vacation or a weekend — gives you a perspective necessary to leading with a clearer head and a more.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 9/29/2017

Putting thoughts down in a journal is a useful leadership exercise. When doing so, it is important to include more than what is happening now but also what could go wrong.

This kind of journaling is revealed with the publication of “The Godfather Notebook” that director Francis Ford Coppola kept while making this iconic film. As revealed in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” Coppola used the notebook to record his thoughts on the meaning, intention and pitfalls of every scene.

Film directors are leaders on the set. Good ones plan every scene in advance so that they can capture the spirit of the script on screen creatively as well as efficiently.

Management is something like that. Executives are bombarded with many details at any given moment. They must focus with clarity on what is important so they can keep projects on task and on budget.

Organize your thoughts in advance. It will prepare you to take action, be it talking to your team or finding additional resources.

The challenge is to make time to think and document your thoughts as words, pictures or diagrams.

Journaling will sharpen your thinking and, in turn, focus on your leadership on what’s most important.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 10/15/2017

“If you want to manage more effectively, you need to be present and accountable.”

That adage gets to the heart of a key theme of “Kitchen Confidential,” Anthony Bourdain’s memoir about learning to cook and learning to manage a kitchen, sometimes effectively and sometimes disastrously.

Here are a few lessons that translate well to management in any field — food or sport or even government.

• Know your trade. A chef prepares the day in advance and stays on his feet much of the day. One mistake and you will disappoint some diner.
• Know what your people expect of you. Restaurants make headlines due to the chef. They stay in business to the hard work of everyone in the operation, from the general manager to the busboy and dishwasher.
• Know that your mistakes are opportunities to learn. Be humble when you screw up. Learn from the good example as well as successful operations of others. Pay attention and learn from the best people around you.
• Know the risks. You must love what you do, but you must also surround yourself with people better and more capable than yourself.

Learning management from the example of others is no shortcut to the top, but when you pay attention to people who have paid their dues, you may save yourself a step or two on the ladder to your success.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 9/15/2017

What’s the secret to a long-term relationship?

“Overlooking the negative and focusing on the positive,” says Helen Fisher, a best-selling author on relationships and a fellow at the Kinsey Institute.

Speaking on “The Diane Rehm Show,” Fisher says that brain scans of couples averaging 20 years revealed the parts of the brain that were active were those linked to empathy, self-control, and an ability to overlook negative, that is, “positive illusions.”

Maintaining “positive illusions” is an outlook that leaders can employ.

Leaders should look on bright side as a means of giving people hope. By nature such hope is rooted in a leader’s faith in his or her followers. It is an affirmation therefore of people for whom the leader is responsible.

None of us is perfect and everyone will, from time to time, do stupid things. Better then to assume the better nature of an individual who reports to you.

When a leader finds something negative, and which threatens organizational harmony, it is time to become involved. Dissent over issues is a positive; it encourages freedom of thought. Dissension over people that undermines the effectiveness of a leader cannot be tolerated.

A leader who can put aside petty slights in order to achieve intended goals is worthy of respect and followership.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 9/01/2017