A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to survey over 100 business leaders across numerous industries. I asked one question: “As a leader, what is your greatest leadership challenge?”

How would you answer this question? There are so many possibilities. Organizational leaders have responsibilities that extend well beyond simply getting their own job done. Leaders must motivate, problem-solve, inspire, reward, deliver bad news, oversee results yet delegate control, handle conflicts, and much more. All in addition to managing their own problems and emotions!

Three key findings emerged from the survey:

1. Employees are a huge challenge. Managing employees came in as the #1 leadership challenge, with over 1/3 of the responses related to handling employee situations. Motivational challenges topped this list with 15% of the responses. Handling conflicts and problem employees earned 11%. Delegation and control concerns received 8%. Clearly, leaders could use more help learning to deal with employees.

2. Personal Lack of Confidence is #2. A distinct personal challenge was actually the largest singular issue at 21% -  a concern about confidence, style, courage, poise, self-assurance and self-acceptance. Is it disconcerting that a fifth of our leaders lack confidence in themselves as leaders? I thought so. Attention leaders out there: You need to understand how good you truly are! Attention organizations out there: your leaders need to understand how good they truly are!

3. The Dysfunctional Organization is a problem. The third largest category of responses involved the organization itself, with over 10% of respondents indicating that working with the executive team is their major challenge. Managing “up,” communicating effectively across organizational lines, and getting the entire management team aligned were all indicated as problem areas.

Put these all together, and we have a hesitant leader uncomfortably handling employee issues within an unsteady, uncommunicative organization. Yikes!

Don’t we want our leaders focused on vision, strategy, customers, new product development and other profitable pursuits? What can be done?

As distressing as these survey results are, there are solutions.

The Employee Solution: Get Skills Training. Handling employees is a learned talent, comprised mostly of “people skills.” Effective communication skills, some basic psychology, and a method for setting expectations and accountability are tools that can be learned and applied to make dealing with employees a lot easier.

The Leadership Solution: Get Personal Development. Individual self confidence building involves more than learning typical presentation or “meet and greet” skills. While a Dale Carnegie course will absolutely improve your exterior presence, it may not address your inner uncertainty. For that, leaders need absolute self-trust in their own strengths as well as the ability to be comfortably authentic. This emotional intelligence comes from developing the right mindset, one that supports continual forward momentum and thwarts self-doubt.

The Executive Team Solution: Get On With It! Leaders at the executive level need to stay focused on the future. Discussions need to be visionary and high-minded. People need to commit to move in the same direction and be held accountable for progress or lack thereof. There really is no excuse for a bunch of leaders working together but not actually leading anything anywhere.

What are the greatest leadership challenges you face? No matter what they are, solutions are available. Just don’t “do nothing.”

For a complete detailed breakdown of all of the survey responses, click here.

photo credit: www.lumaxart.com

I work with both men and women in my coaching practice, and over time have noticed some fundamental differences in the success-killing emotions the two sexes tend to express. A recent series of blog posts entitled For Women Only: Are You Feeling FUDA (Frazzled, Uncertain, Disillusioned or All-of-the-Above) covered strategies to handle those emotions typically felt by women. Now it’s the guys’ turn!

Men experience the pressures of life a little differently from women. Often the intensity is cranked up and defense mechanisms turn to “fight or flight” mode. Even highly successful men, from entrepreneurs to executives, tell me they feel:

Vulnerable. Competition is fierce out there, and no matter how successful you are, someone younger, faster, and stronger is always nipping at your heels, right? Threats appear in unrelenting succession from all angles. Vulnerability leads to feelings of inadequacy, which lead to even more feelings of vulnerability, in a devastating downward spiral.

Angry. “Fight or flight” is a natural, instinctive response. The problem is, most perceived threats these days are not life-threatening; yet furious, steaming, anger can be the first emotional reaction to a disagreement, or even to something as innocuous as a disappointment. Anger does not resolve conflict; in contrast, anger builds conflict, leaving destroyed relationships, bad decisions, and personal guilt in its wake.

Defeated. Feelings of defeat are today’s version of “flight.” You may not leave physically, but mentally you check out. And to save face, you might even make sure that you check out before the opposing party has a chance to defeat you! Either way, you give your personal power and control away.

All-of-the-Above. If you are feeling all of these emotions, you are in no position to succeed. All of the tools essential for success: confidence, rational thinking, relationship-building, focus, personal power, courage, and control have been stripped away, leaving you isolated and incapacitated.

Yikes! Are you ready to get your mojo back? Stay tuned for solutions in upcoming posts.

A brilliant professor of Women’s Studies at a prestigious college in Pennsylvania recently asked me if there were any “typical” struggles that professional women report when seeking coaching. After reflecting awhile, I replied that there are three fundamental states-of-mind that universally emerge during conversations with professional women who are trying to develop success careers along with manage a household, attentively raise children, keep the fire in relationships, and experience at least some level of personal fulfillment.

Do you ever struggle with any of these universal feelings? Are you Frazzled, Uncertain, Disillusioned, Or All-Of-The-Above?

Feeling Frazzled is when you’ve gone beyond overwhelm into that crippling quagmire where the weighty demands of your frenetic world actually cause immobility. The wheels have come off the wagon. Exhaustion, dejection and the inability to focus become the slippery walls of the quagmire, forcing you to work ever harder to accomplish anything at all. Sound familiar?

Uncertainty is equally debilitating. Doubt creeps into everything you hold dear. You lose confidence at work, you wonder if you have become unattractive to your mate, you mishandle communications with the kids, you give up personal pursuits that used to bring you joy. You ponder what is wrong, when you should be happy.

Disillusionment can result from feeling frazzled or uncertain. Disillusionment may also strike from out of the blue, from a lightning-bolt realization that you have chosen the wrong path and have no escape. You worry that you are trapped, that there are only two choices: settle into resignation and slog on through, or disrupt everything and everyone to change course. Which leads you right back to feeling frazzled and uncertain.

All-of-the-Above is how life feels for many successful women. Are you one of them?

My next post will deal with solutions. Stay tuned!

Exactly three weeks and twenty minutes into a ten-week private executive coaching series designed to help David prepare for a huge new position as head of regional sales for a financial services company (no of course that’s not his real name – confidentiality is absolute!), he abruptly stopped mid-sentence and blurted out, “Do you mind if I ask YOU a question?”

“Of course not,” I replied. “What’s on your mind?”

“What should I do about my teenage son? He’s driving my wife crazy and doesn’t listen to anything I say.” Dave’s frustration was evident in his voice.

It was not the first time I had heard this question, or some variation of it. The more I coach people on how to achieve success in business, the more apparent it becomes that relationships and family often dominate our thoughts, and the strengths (and/or weaknesses) of these relationships can have a direct impact on the success we seek. Other dominant themes that come up often in conversations include overcoming lack of self-confidence, how to make more money, how to achieve better life balance, a desire for insider “secrets” to success, and how to achieve happiness alongside success.

Over the coming weeks I will publish oft-asked client questions along with my responses. I look forward to your feedback, comments and additional questions!

As for David’s teenager, I offered these suggestions (incidentally, these also apply to co-workers and employees whose behavior you want to modify!). I’ve had teens of my own and in no way claim perfect success in this area, but in my experience these tips helped:

1. Make sure your teen knows the boundaries of acceptable behavior at home. Treating his mother and father (and brothers and sisters for that matter) with respect should be one of the “house agreements”.
2. Consequences, such as loss of the car, cell phone, etc. are very effective when house agreements are broken.
3. Instead of trying to impose your will upon your teen, try pulling back a little. Doing the unexpected, like easing up on him and giving him a little space to be grumpy or lazy or whatever is driving you crazy  (as long as he rises to the occasion when it matters, like at the dinner table) will help break poor patterns of communication. Make him come to you, and communicate with you properly. He will when he wants something, like the car keys. Then you can engage him in civil conversation.
4. Make sure he knows that you love and support him, just not his behavior.
5. Finally, and probably most important, take care of your relationship with your spouse. The kids should know that the parents are the alphas in the house, have a relationship together that excludes the children, and have solidarity as a parental unit that cannot be broken. (This applies even if the parents are no longer married to each other – work it out so that you have a united front!)

Because our lives and our work are so intertwined, it is important to acknowledge that a problem in one area can spill over and cause a problem in another.  So this is the place to ask any question by commenting on this post or sending me a message, and I will address them as a blog series. As always, your confidentiality is guaranteed.