Thanks for joining us. LeaderChat is a new weekly blog devoted to exploring the ways that innovative human resource practices can create engaged, passionate, and high performing work environments. Our departure points for discussion each week will be the content that appears in our Ignite newsletter on the first week of each month and the material covered by different subject matter experts in our monthly webinar which are presented in the second week of each month. Both of these resources are free and you can find links to both on the front page at www.kenblanchard.com.
This week in LeaderChat we are looking at some of the qualities that make up a great leader. Many of you are coming to LeaderChat after participating in Scott Blanchard’s January 21 webinar on Managing People’s Energy: The Power of Alignment where he outlined three key tasks for leaders in moving forward—acknowledge reality, define a direction, and manage people’s energy.
Others of you are visiting here for the first time in preparation for a February 11 event by Ken Blanchard on Leading in Uncertain Times. Between both groups, I think we have the opportunity to start a lively discussion that can help all of us as we begin to formulate strategies that can help our respective businesses get through the tough times ahead.
For this week, I’d like to focus on the points that Scott raised first. There was a lot of emphasis in the webinar on the importance of senior leadership keeping people informed on what is happening in the business environment—even if it isn’t good news, and even if they don’t have complete answers. What are your thoughts on that?
The second question I want to raise is your response to a question I asked Ken Blanchard during an interview a week ago for the upcoming February 2 issue of our Ignite newsletter. I asked Ken what he felt were the characteristics that people were looking for in leaders these days given all of the gloom and doom that is surrounding us. Ken’s number one response? Leaders need to be hope champions.
What are your thoughts on hope as a key ingredient in helping people move forward? I’m usually suspicious of simple answers to complex questions. I had always heard that “hope is not a strategy” but now I’m beginning to wonder. Given the present mood in most work environments, is hope one of the most important things that people are looking for from the leaders in your organization?
What are your thoughts? Drop me a line. I’ll print your responses and we’ll use it as the starting point for our conversations going forward.
Dave