Whether your team has achieved a significant goal or is looking to get back on track after a shake-up, here are some basic ways to get everyone back on course.

Identify the Next Horizon

Once your team has reached a goal and the celebration is over (you do celebrate big wins, right?), there can be a bit of an empty feeling. What’s next, everyone wonders. If you’re not careful, you can rely on a past victory to define your team when what you really need is a new goal. Not all new goals are equal. Some are highly visible and broadly applicable. Others are just next steps. Don’t discriminate. Choose the appropriate next step to focus your team.

Reinvent Continuously

The speed of change continues to accelerate, which means what worked yesterday may not work today. It’s becoming much more difficult to duplicate past wins. On one hand, setting off in a new direction provides the opportunity to break down your operation and processes into small parts and identify improvements for each one. On the other hand, it’s important to be aware of the potential necessity to throw out your whole business model and chart a new course.

Remember, it’s far easier to change on your own terms than to wait until you have no other option.

Get Back to the Basics

Every year when the Green Bay Packers began training camp, the late head coach Vince Lombardi would gather the team together with a football in hand and remind them, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” It didn’t matter whether the Packers had just won a championship the year before (as they often had). After Easy Company captured Adolf Hitler’s famous Eagle’s Nest in WWII, Major Winters had his troops perform routine training exercises until they were sent back home. Once we’ve tasted success, it’s tempting to become lax on the fundamentals. But without them, the victories aren’t possible.

Engage Your People

No time is ever the wrong time to engage your people. But in the moments following a success or preceding a new initiative, take extra care to ensure a strong connection. Make sure your folks know they are appreciated, but are also keenly aware of how their work connects to the mission of the organization. Don’t just tell them once, tell them over and over again. Give rewards and promotions where due. And if organizational change is part of the equation, take special pains upfront to address how their daily work experience will transition.

In The Art of Leadership, Max de Pree says, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” That’s great advice to keep in mind in times of transition as well as (rare) times of stability.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Use Your Leadership Role to Serve Others (Not Yourself)

In his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, former USC president Steven Sample noted that many people want to “be” the leader, but not so many want to “do” leader. In other words, it’s supposed to be a role, not a title. I remember when my buddy suggested we start a “gang.” “In fact, you can be the leader,” he said. I didn’t really know how the formal association would change our normal activities, but I was intrigued at being the leader. We quickly created a hierarchy, which ended up causing more problems than it solved. In the end, I would’ve fared much better had I realized that the point of leadership isn’t to serve yourself.

Know Why You Exist

Like so many organizations, our small group of friends had a name, but we weren’t really sure what we stood for. You’ve probably encountered a similar situation. Everyone gets so busy in the day-to-day that it takes an organizational crisis to finally expose an accompanying identity crisis. A compelling purpose sets your organization apart from the rest – otherwise why should anyone stay with you?

Chart the Course

With no vision, the people perish – as the old proverb goes. Every organization should know where it’s going and set the direction accordingly. Our “gang” wasn’t real clear on this either. I think we envisioned building kid forts at the local creeks, but we never got around to articulating our goals. As a results, the rationale for our activities was hazy at best.

Be Inclusive vs. Exclusive

My biggest leadership lesson in the gang probably came the day I received a call from another kid’s mom telling me he’d been crying since I wouldn’t let him in our gang and she wanted me to explain myself. At first I didn’t know what she was talking about but it came together pretty quickly. What had happened was another friend (my #3, I think) had told me this fellow had said our gang was dumb, so as the leader, shouldn’t I decide that he couldn’t be in our gang? I had said “sure” and then forgotten about it. Until now – on the phone. All I knew is I didn’t want to have another conversation like that again soon.

Not everyone needs to be in your “gang.” You want the right people on the inside and you want to be clear about who and how you serve the people on the outside. But the focus should be inclusive – how to find great fits, rather than exclusive – how to keep people out.

And for the record, I think if every gang leader was forced to listen to upset mothers after each tiff, there’d probably be a lot fewer problems.

Demonstrate Results

Ultimately, as leaders we’re all judged by our results – including the collective results of the organizations we lead. I don’t think we accomplished one single thing in our gang. In fact, I think I lost all interest after the conversation with the aforementioned mother. Things just fizzled out from there. Without results, you lose the opportunity to lead. No excuses – that’s just how it works.

You may not have participated in prior gang activity – and if you have, I hope it was as short and relatively harmless as my experience was. But the principles of effective leadership are universal. Organizations succeed or fail based on the leadership capacity at the top.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

There’s no question that leadership isn’t easy. But when done right, it’s always worth it. When the stress becomes overwhelming, it can be helpful to take a step back and consider the reasons we took the leap in the first place. Here are some of the common ones.

Today Isn’t Good Enough

When everything is as it should be, the need for leadership doesn’t exist. As the saying goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. But when we catch a vision of a better future – combined with a conviction that someone ought to do something to make it happen – that’s usually when we enlist. Leadership isn’t about positive feelings, it’s about creating positive change. And that means getting our hands dirty in the process of creating a brighter future. The clearer the picture, the more likely we are to sign up.

We Can’t Get There Alone

If we could create the future we want by ourselves, we wouldn’t need others to follow us. It’s only when the work becomes more than we can accomplish on our own (as is usually the case with anything worthwhile) that we need to enlist others to help us get there. But they aren’t following us per se – they are joining us in pursuit of a better future.

You’ve probably noticed a difference in people aspire to lead in order to take responsibility for creating change and those who just want to be in charge. No one wants to follow someone who only wants a title. There’s no dignity in being a pawn for someone else’s agenda. But when we give people the opportunity to do what they do best to create a future they believe in, the possibilities are endless.

We Want to Become Something More

Zig Ziglar liked to say that each of us is endowed with the seeds of greatness. At any rate, most of us probably feel like we’re capable of something more. That’s usually a factor in why we take the plunge. It’s true that leadership is a process and it’s not always a pretty one. But the wise ones know that who we become along the way is more important than what we accomplish. Or how good it looks or how long it takes.

The Next Generation Matters

There’s a lot of talk these days about the “next generation.” But most of us would agree that we ought to leave things in better shape for those who come behind us. The next generation could the incoming class of students, this year’s interns or the high potential group. Or it could literally be the next demographic generation – or your even own children. The bottom line is that these people matter. And they won’t get where they need to go on their own. The sacrifices we make and the responsibility we take can make all the difference for them.

Leadership expert and former colleague Robert Thomas noted that sometimes events conspire to make us a leader. The circumstances we’re in may not be the result of our choices, but they may provide a unique opportunity to make a difference. Leadership isn’t easy, but many times it’s necessary. So when the going gets tough, take a moment to remember why you got started.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Mark Miller developed the SERVE model and curriculum and collaborated with Ken Blanchard to publish it in their book The Secret. Each member of our small team presented a portion of the model. I’ll summarize it for you here below.

See & Shape the Future

The first thing leaders must do is be able to envision a future that is somehow different than (and an improvement on) what exists today. Think about it: if the status quo is just fine, then leaders are unnecessary. Next, leaders must be able to communicate the vision to those around them and work proactively to shape the course. After all, nothing happens without someone going first.

Engage and Develop Others

In the course of pursuing any vision, leaders must find a way to engage the people around them so that they are “in it” for themselves, not just falling in line. When followers are engaged, they know what’s in it for them and they also know where they fit in the broader scheme of things. There are many visions out there to follow. Giving your followers the chance to grow is one of the best ways to ensure they choose your vision over the rest.

Reinvent Continuously

The “what” of the vision won’t change (if it does, then it’s a new vision), but the how is always subject to change. Change is often painful but it’s necessary. When times are bad, change is easy – in the sense that there is not much choice involved. Either change or suffer the consequences. It’s much more difficult to embrace a change mindset when things are going well. That’s why constant improvement requires leadership to stay disciplined and look for ways to make things better.

Value Results and Relationships

The brilliant thing about this principle is that it makes results and relationships mutually inclusive vs. exclusive. Instead of pursuing one at the expense of the other, a vision is best served when a high value is placed on both. Many leaders tend to lean in one direction over another. That’s okay as long as there are other leaders to help provide balance, but the most successful teams find ways to win together – as a team.

Embody the Values

According to Mark Miller, someone who embodies the values exemplifies the non-negotiable elements that comprise the organization’s culture. When there is a disconnect between what a leader says and what they do, not only is credibility lost, but so is most of the motivation to follow. Trust is the ultimate foundation for any successful relationship, especially the relationship a leader has with followers. It only works when values, words and actions all point in the same direction.

You’ve probably noticed by now that the main focus of the SERVE model is always other people. A self-serving leader just won’t make it very far. Zig Ziglar famously said that you can have anything you want it you will just help enough other people get what they want. Will you join me in looking for new ways to SERVE?

If you’d like to assess your ability to lead according to this SERVE model, take this assessment from the author’s site.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

You’ve undoubtedly been asked this rhetorical question before. Apparently how you answer is supposed to quickly reveal whether you are an optimist or a pessimist – and perhaps a lot more about your inner worldview.

I’m not sure what the “right” answer to the the glass question is – although I always think it should somehow depend on what’s in the glass to begin with. But when it comes to being an optimist, I’m am sure of this: optimists are in high demand.

Here’s why.

Your Vision Won’t Last Without It

A vision is normally the first step for any change initiative. You’ve got to develop a clear picture of what the future could and should look like. But if you don’t believe you can bring the vision to life, why even bother to get started? That’s why leaders must be optimists. It’s not that they can’t see problems for what they are, but they use problems to fuel their vision of a better future.

You’ll Never Be Completely Sure

Can’t we just settle for being realists? After all, some of the criticisms of overly positive people is that they are naive, have their head in the clouds and are unrealistic. Author Mark Miller addresses this in The Heart of Leadership. He says expecting the best doesn’t mean ignoring the facts. We need to have as clear a grasp of reality as possible. The problem is that we’ll never be 100% sure of anything. There will always be uncertainty. That’s where optimism comes in. At the end of the day, each decision should be a calculated guess. But if you believe it will fail, you’ll never be able to enlist the support you need to pull it off.

Leaders must be optimists because of uncertainty, not despite it.

People Need It

In his book Winning, Jack Welch observes that upbeat managers with a positive outlook naturally tend to have teams made up of… upbeat employees with a positive outlook. It’s a fact that people respond positively to positive expectations.

But to take this a step further, probably the best tactic in human relations is to believe the best about people. Napoleon said that people are dealers in hope. A little hope doesn’t just go a long way. It could make all the difference in the world. Think about the teachers, coaches or bosses you’ve worked the hardest for. Chances are they saw what you could become and challenged you along the way.

Will you ever be wrong? Will people ever let you down? Of course they will. But that won’t stop you if you genuinely believe the best about them – for their sake, not yours.

No One Wants to Follow a Pessimist!

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shared in an interview at the Leadercast seminar in 2013 that leaders must be optimists simply because no one wants to follow a pessimist! This is really the bottom line. If you want to be a pessimist, that’s fine, but don’t expect people to line up behind you.

So where does that leave us: glass half empty or half full? I understand we all approach the question from a different stand point. Being positive can be a challenge sometimes, but when it comes down to it, optimism is a choice.

Will you make the choice to be an optimist today?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

It’s hard enough to want to delegate in the first place. Many leaders lack trust, are insecure or are control freaks. But once you get past those barriers, what happens when your followers can’t pull their weight? Let’s talk about a few ways managers can guide their projects so that everyone can contribute.

Your Team’s Performance is Your Responsibility

This should go without saying, yet it needs to be said. If you are the leader, you are responsible for the total collective performance of every person on your team. Most people understand this intuitively. A manager can’t explain to his executives, customers or clients that he couldn’t get the job done because one of his staff couldn’t pull their weight. But unfortunately it’s a major reason many great workers avoid management responsibilities. No one wants to manage a poor team and no one wants to be responsible for multiple jobs all of the time. So what can you do?

Not All Employees are the Same

We also know this is true, but our sense of fairness compels us to treat all our employees the same. That’s often the problem right there. Some employees are high performers and some aren’t. Some are highly experienced and some are new. Some work best while collaborating and some work best alone. Some will get all their work done ahead of time and some wait till the last minute. Of course it’s possible and sometimes necessary to remove under-performers through HR processes. But many times this isn’t the real need and doesn’t solve the problem. First, take the time to diagnose where your employees are on the performance scale. Work with them to create individual development plans for growth. Understand their career goals. Give as much responsibility as they can handle, with the stated goal of giving more in the future. Get to know their learning and working styles. None of these should excuse poor performance – and you’ll both be better for understanding.

Cast the Vision

When you launch a new project, don’t start by communicating the nitty-gritty details. Start with the bottom line up front (BLUF). At the end of the project, what will be accomplished? Explain the difference the project will make in the grander scheme of things. Communicate why it’s crucial for everyone to work as a team and address the benefit to them (WIIFM = what’s in it for me?).

Set Performance Expectations Upfront

Next, for each team member, explain his or her role on the project and the tasks that go with the role. Be as explicit as you can be about the responsibility and as detailed as you need to be about the tasks. For inexperienced employees, this could mean explaining the implied tasks until they reach the next stage of competence.

Make a Project Plan

A project plan is basically a document that breaks down all of the tasks and milestones of a project, their due dates and who will be responsible for each one. I like to use Microsoft® Project or Excel. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. Think of it as creating an outline before writing an article. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it will most likely change (multiple times). But a project plan allows all parties to be on the same page at all times. Even more, it establishes an added level of responsibility and accountability. It’s up to me to follow through on all the project plan items assigned to my name. In project meetings, it’s up to me to provide updates on my items like percentage completed, red flags, additional information needed, etc. By the way, don’t just assign completion dates on your project plans. Assign first draft dates, review dates, dates to incorporate feedback, test/pilot dates and final dates – all as needed.

Set Leadership Expectations Upfront

Finally, how will you support the team? This should be addressed beforehand as well. If you manage the project plan, make sure everyone knows when their updates are due. (Management challenge: delegate the project plan responsibilities). Schedule review meetings with each individual (if possible) so all parties will have the opportunity to address questions and concerns before there’s an issue. And clarify what you want the employees to do when they need help (hint: they don’t always have to come to you first).

Project management can be exhilarating and exhausting, rewarding and trying. Most of us have been on projects we loved and ones we hated. Usually, the difference was leadership.

What else would you add on how to tactically execute a project effectively?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

So how do you go about creating change in your organization? Change seems like it should be simple enough – until we experience resistence from people who want things to stay the same. What’s the solution?

Below are John Kotter’s eight stages:

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency

According to Kotter, the biggest mistake change practitioners make is allowing too much complacency. The organization has been successful so far, so why change things now? Or, if a change is necessary, they do not make enough of case for how critical it is. So do your homework first. Is the change critical or merely a whim? If critical, how much? What opportunities will the change bring? What crises will take place if no change occurs?

2. Create the Guiding Coalition

The guiding coalition needs to have enough organizational influence (including positional authority, I’ve found), to pull the change off. They not only need to be committed to the change itself, but able to work together as a team to that end. If you are responsible for creating a major change but do not have enough positional authority, make sure to enlist the influence you need or you’ll likely waste your time.

3. Develop a Vision and Strategy

The change vision is the picture of what the present will look like – in the future after the change has taken place. Urgent data can’t inspire the masses the way a vision can. As a rule of thumb, the shorter, more concise and easier to communicate the vision is, the more likely it will be caught. The strategy is simply the plan for accomplishing the vision. Both the vision and strategy create enormous context for all the decisions that will be made down the line.

4. Communicate the Change Vision

Don’t just communicate the change vision. Over-communicate it. Use any and every possible method available. Then refuse to stop, no matter how far along in the process you get. The most influential communication is the modeling of new expectations by the guiding coalition. Communication with words is powerful. Communication with deeds is infinitely more so.

5. Empower Broad-Based Action

Oftentimes change in one area preempts change in another area. If you want change in behavior, you will probably need to change the environment as well. In this stage, it is critical to remove the barriers that impede the change you seek, whether systems, processes or infrastructure. Employees should be empowered to take risks in removing change barriers.

6. Generate Short-Term Wins

If there is no payoff for the change you are working to create until the final end, most people won’t be able to weather the storm. Part of your strategy needs to include visible improvements in the short-term. Once these short-term wins are reached, publicly recognize and reward the people responsible. Point to the desired end result, but be patient enough to celebrate in the present.

7. Consolidate Gains and Produce More Change

Whatever you do, do NOT declare victory too soon. Stay the course. Celebrating a win and declaring victory are much different. Don’t use wins as an excuse to get sloppy, but to reinvigorate the process with new projects and themes. Find ways to include people who haven’t gotten a shot on the front lines as of yet. A lack of focus will allow old traditions to seep back into the mix.

8. Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

Kotter points out that, “change sticks only when it becomes ‘the way we do things around here.'” Once victory has been achieved, it must be protected with shared values, performance standards, leadership development and succession decisions – all over time. Make continual references to the relationship between new behaviors and organizational success.

What changes are you attempting to lead? What’s your change plan?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

As organizational leaders, we tend to worship good ideas. We don’t want followers who simply show up to do their work and leave, we want ones who generate ideas on their own and possess the motivation to see them through. So what makes good ideas so dangerous? The answer lies in the substantial difference between a good idea and a right idea (tweet). The difference between the two is alignment. In the absence of a guiding vision and strategy, there is no overarching target to align ideas with (whether good or bad ones). That means no basis exists to determine whether a particular good idea ought to be pursued or not. This can be all the more true for government, non-profit, and ministry organizations, who are rewarded not in dollars earned for products/services but for meeting what can often be vague or changing objectives.

Let’s take a closer look.

When an organization’s guiding vision is non-existent or unclear, good ideas can be dangerous.

In the absence of a guiding vision, good ideas represent low hanging fruit that unfocused leaders reflexively reach for, especially when pressured to report visible success. It’s likely you’ve seen this before.  When each individual comes up with different good ideas, the operating environment quickly gets complicated. It can be even worse in large organizations where entire teams come up with ideas independently of one another. Once a team or an individual commits to a good idea, their personal success and pride are on the line. Quitting equates to failure, so ideas evolve into personal agendas that turn departments, teams, and individuals into silos. Organizations can literally be pulled apart by pursuing different “good” ideas that send them in directions. The result is a wide variety of small “success stories,” but no accomplishment of the organizational mission, effectiveness, or momentum. All too often this leads to a loss of trust, miscommunication, and a decrease in morale, not to mention loss of market share or revenue. Instead of diagnosing what went wrong, more good ideas are elicited to save the day and the vicious cycle continues.

When an organization’s guiding vision exists and is clear, good ideas drive positive change.

Clarity inspires focused creativity and guides a team’s thinking. It places a buffer between people and their (collective) ideas since each idea is evaluated based on it’s ability to accomplish the overall objective. Special consideration is given to the opportunity cost of good ideas, since each one requires time and resources that cannot be easily reallocated to another better idea. When an idea is achieved, the success story is centered around the accomplishment of the mission and realization of the vision, instead of a disjointed summary of ad hoc success stories.

So what can you do when the “Good Idea Fairy” strikes? Bobb Biehl once said that a sign of maturity is putting process between opportunity and response. In this case, the process is evaluating each idea against the guiding vision to ensure alignment. Of each idea you must ask the question, “what are we really trying to accomplish and will this idea get us closer to the realization of our vision or not?” Here are some steps you may want to use:

• Consider your guiding vision. If you don’t have one, or if it is unclear or under-communicated, give this your full attention before considering any new ideas that could risk spending time or resources pulling your organization in a wrong direction.
• Brainstorm: don’t just evaluate each idea as it comes. Collect a wide range and evaluate them collectively.
• Separate the ideas into groups of those that align with your vision and those that do not.
• Of the ideas that do align, select the very best and get to work on them. Put the others into a “parking lot” for later consideration. For the ideas that do not align, consider how you can share them with other teams or organizations whose guiding vision would support their consideration.

In all of this, remember that they key is not to try to limit creative thinking or discourage people from sharing their thoughts. The key is to always have a visible True North, so that everyone can generate, commit to, and implement ideas they are fully confident will drive your organization in the right direction.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.