By John Ryan, Center for Creative Leadership

Globalization, talent shortages and roller coaster market dynamics are just a few of the complex challenges facing today’s businesses. So how do you lead effectively in this turbulent environment?
“Complex challenges — ranging from expanding into overseas markets to dealing with the fallout of natural disasters — often don’t respond to conventional approaches and knowledge. Instead, they require innovative thought and action,” says John Ryan, President and CEO of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).

Six important things you can do to become a more effective leader include:

Collaborate. Collaborative leaders can get tremendous results. Research shows that the ability to collaborate is a skill that top executives believe their men and women should have. In fact, 97 percent of the executives we surveyed identified collaboration as a key to their organization’s success. And yet, just 47 percent of those same executives believe the leaders in their organizations are skilled collaborators.

Act authentically. Executives we talk to frequently emphasize the importance of authentic leadership: doing your job without compromising your values, beliefs or personality. But leading authentically is not easy. Executives in CCL’s survey acknowledged that trying to keep up an executive image of being decisive and all-knowing can compromise their authenticity.

Sustain talent. It can take years to groom effective senior leaders — and organizations will need to develop new generations of leaders who will be able to succeed amid the complex challenges. Organizations will need to create pools of candidates with high leadership potential and then put our talent where it can excel.

Develop judgment. In their 2007 book Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis argue that leaders need to develop three kinds of judgment:
• People judgment: the ability to get the right talent on the team;
• Strategy judgment: the ability to frame the right questions; and
• Crisis judgment: knowing your values and goals.

Value learning agility. Work challenges are constantly changing and the flow of information is nonstop. Effective leaders, then, have the ability to learn on the fly and to act on the spur of the moment.

Manage your health. CCL research involving senior executives shows that effective leadership and regular exercise are strongly linked. Executives who exercise are rated significantly higher by their co-workers on their leadership effectiveness than non-exercisers. In fact, exercisers score better than non-exercisers in all leadership categories, including organization, credibility, leading others and authenticity. And, of course, regular exercise improves your energy, stamina and overall health.

Reprinted with permission from the Center for Creative Leadership, www.ccl.org

Need Help in this Area?  Try: Everest Think your latest workplace challenge is tough? Try scaling Mount Everest – as a blind mountain climber. This inspirational program shows how to dream big and work together as a team.

The Problem: It doesn’t matter if the company has six, 60, or 60,000 employees – this training situation is all about the individual. And here it is: Each and every one those individuals has an internal “filter” that affects how he or she views the world, and themselves. Your filter is shaped by a variety of influences; culture, background,  position, history. But being aware of how your filter affects others around you is often a challenge for many people since it requires a high degree of self-awareness, not to mention an open mind. How does a trainer help people understand this fundamental human reality?

The Solution: Leadership and Self Deception, the CRM video program that tells the story of a 19th century doctor who challenged the status quo with a provocative new theory about germs and infections. Because of the stubborn mindsets of the medical establishment at the time, his was not an easy road.

Dr. Bea Carson of Carson Consultants in Maryland uses this video and several others to help her clients “open the doors of perception” and self-awareness. She calls it “being out of your box”.

Carson has conducted this program for a number of clients, several of them more than once. Training is done in simple, face-to-face classroom style and participants came from all over the world. She has used many parts of the Leadership and Self Deception classroom guide and also has scripted many portions of her program herself, tailoring it to each company’s needs.

Interestingly, she often uses “Leadership and Self Deception” in tandem with another film that explores cultural perceptions and the conflicts they can cause.

Carson reports that participants who have been through this training come away with a powerful recognition of personal filters, how they’re based on past experiences and beliefs, and how everyone can learn to take a few seconds to evaluate what’s influencing their reactions.

“All of the CRM programs I have used over the years are clearly and thoroughly organized”, Carson says. “It makes training feel extraordinarily simple”.

Watch a free full length preview of Leadership and Self Deception:
http://www.crmlearning.com/leadership-and-self-deception

What can leaders do to better manage stress? Here are a few tips and tools from a team of experts from the Center for Creative Leadership: Vidula Bal, Michael Campbell, Joan Gurvis and Sharon McDowell-Larsen.

Know the signals. Learn to pay attention to your body’s response to stress. What triggers a feeling of stress and what are your physiological responses? Do you feel your heart rate going up? Do you get hot? Do you clench your jaw? Get a headache? The sooner you recognize that your body is going into stress, the sooner you can do something to manage it.

Create a ritual. Make it a habit to have a stress break. For example, every 90 minutes get up from your desk and walk around or get out for some fresh air. Do some deep breathing, shoulder shrugs, or just close your eyes for one minute. Taking a mental or physical break is an important strategy for dealing with day-to-day stress. When things are extra stressful, you can rely on these same tactics to get you through.

Get away. Find effective ways to set boundaries between work and home life. Whatever works for you – listening to music on the commute home, turning off the cell phone and email during personal or family time, participating in a social activity or hobby – make time for it and keep your commitment to having a life outside of work.

Focus on fitness. A regular exercise program is the best way to minimize the negative health outcomes associated with the demands of the job. Under stress we build up certain hormones; exercise dissipates some of that. Make a commitment to exercising at least 30 minutes twice a week. Also, incorporate healthy practices such as adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet while reducing added sugars, fat and sodium.

Build a support system. Ask for help. Build a network of people who can assist you and alleviate some stress. Acknowledging that you are particularly stressed can ease the strain a bit, too. Other ideas include getting a coach to help you organize and prioritize your life. Or create your personal Board of Directors: a support group that will help you cope with stress and leadership. Ask a diverse group (peers, your boss, a family member and a trusted friend) to work with you to understand your goals around managing stress and help you stay on track.

Re-group on the task. When dealing with stress from task demands (as opposed to relationship challenges) one of the best strategies is to look for ways to organize and streamline your work. Planning, organizing and prioritizing appear to be effective ways to manage task-related stress. Defining roles and clarifying expectations, managing a project schedule and completing tasks ahead of deadline are other strategies. Gaining focus may reduce stress during a task as well as before a new task is started.

Recover. Do more in less time by practicing the art of recovery. Athletes have long understood that pushing oneself hard at 100 percent capacity, 100 percent of the time, results in little or no long-term gains in performance. Building in enough time to relax and recharge is critical for clear and creative thinking, strong relationships and good health. Make sure that throughout the day you are allowing yourself real and frequent breaks – at least a 10-minute break every 90 minutes. And leave the job behind: time and energy spent off-the-job can enhance your productivity and your capacity to deal with work challenges.

Re-define balance. Forget the idea of balance as finally having equal or sufficient time for everything: career, family, friends, community and leisure pursuits. Instead, start making clear choices that support your core values. Life balance is complex, not really something we can ever hope to accomplish. Demands and interests change over time, and what felt like balance at one point quickly becomes outdated. But if your life reflects who you are and what you value, you will feel more in balance – even when there isn’t enough time.

How Leaders Cope
Leaders deal with the negative effects of stress in a number of ways:

• Physical exercise is the most commonly cited method leaders use to manage stress.

• More than 90 percent of leaders cite that they manage stress by temporarily removing themselves, either physically or mentally, from the source of their stress.

• Most leaders use a variety of sensory or physical activities to manage stress: exercise, outdoor hobbies, music, games, television, etc.

• Stress caused by job responsibilities and decision making is often managed by finding ways to gain focus and perspective on the challenge: planning, project management, clarification.

Reprinted with permission from the Center for Creative Leadership, www.ccl.org