Melissa Williams-Gurian

29Mar 2017 by melissa No Comments

Should Leaders Serve Others?

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Many people imagine a leader as a kind of commander going into battle: he or she is facing forward in front, while others surge along behind. Yet I have watched many leaders use this forward march style, only to have their “soldiers” trail behind reluctantly, or not at all. Often, the issue seems to be that the leader in front has never taken the time to earn that leadership. There are many ways a leader can attract a loyal, enthusiastic crew, and one way that offers great impact is to work on becoming a leader who serves others. Leaders with a service mentality must be willing to sometimes lead from the back while encouraging others forward. It’s a tough shift for some, but the payoff can be extraordinary. It is…

17Mar 2017 by melissa No Comments

The Emotionally Intelligent Team

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One team seems to be struggling, even though the group holds some of the company’s top employees. Another team is highly productive, driving innovation, and doing it in relative harmony. Why is one team effective while another falters? The answer seems to center on the level of a group’s emotional intelligence. That intelligence is made up of the ability of each individual in the group to understand and manage their own emotions, as well as the emotions of the group. Individuals with high emotional intelligence will have self-awareness, that is, an ability to identify their own thoughts, feelings, wants and observations. They will also have an awareness of others, which is usually expressed as an ability to listen, show empathy, and feel and express curiosity about others. The team becomes…

09Mar 2017 by melissa No Comments

How are you ‘being’ as a leader?

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I recently brought two peers together for a coaching wrap-up session. They shared highlights of their coaching, including learnings and insights, and talked about what they have lately been choosing to do differently in their organizations and with their teams. I noticed that when we got to the question, “Who are you being now, and what is different about it?” we seemed to arrive at the heart of the leadership success these two have reached over the last four months. “I’m being present with my people—I’m more open, and a better listener,” one leader shared. “I’m being more transparent, and sharing my inner thoughts more openly,” said the other. Ultimately, it turned out, shifting their “being” was not only central to each leader’s personal development, but also critical to their…

24Feb 2017 by melissa No Comments

Four Traits that Correlate With Leadership Success

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A range of traits make up leadership ability, and companies that invest in developing leaders likely want to prioritize among the possibilities. To do this, it is helpful to look at leadership research, such as that of global management consulting firm McKinsey&Company, which has taken on the task of investigating which leadership traits most closely correlate with leadership success. Their research found four traits in particular that “closely correlate[s] with leadership success, particularly among frontline leaders.” These four behaviors were prevalent in strong organizations with effective leaders, as reported in the article in McKinsey quarterly, Decoding Leadership: What Really Matters: Solving problems effectively: “The process that precedes decision making is problem solving, when information is gathered, analyzed, and considered,” the authors write. This trait is what helps leaders effectively tackle…

06Feb 2017 by melissa No Comments

How To Grow Your Executive Presence

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In coaching I regularly see very talented leaders whose ideas are critical to a business, but who nevertheless have not yet been invited to the executive team. It’s hard to imagine anything more frustrating at work than making huge contributions, only to be held back. What can be particularly difficult in these situations is that often higher-ups explain the leader’s failure to move forward with one of the vaguest explanations in the business: “He/she lacks executive presence.” Sorting out the meaning of this catch-all phrase can be quite difficult. That’s because the “executive presence” as a term seems to vary according to who is being told that they are lacking it. Usually, though, it's not impossible. My clients and I can often sift through feedback, ask more questions, and figure…

26Jan 2017 by melissa No Comments

Want to Grow Your Life? Allow Boredom.

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In a recent story in Wired Magazine, How Being Bored Out of Your Mind Makes You More Creative, author Clive Thompson describes two recent studies that suggest that working on boring tasks is good for creativity. Writes Thompson, “In one [study], researchers asked a group of subjects to do something boring, like copying out numbers from a phone book, and then take tests of creative thinking, such as devising uses for a pair of cups. The result? Bored subjects came up with more ideas than a nonbored control group, and their ideas were often more creative. In a second study, subjects who took an ‘associative thought’ word test came up with more answers when they’d been forced to watch a dull screensaver.” The psychologists Thompson spoke to speculated that boredom may…

19Jan 2017 by melissa No Comments

Conversational Chemistry

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Brain science can help leaders understand how to have great conversations. That’s one important message I learned from reading the work of Judith Glaser. Glaser, an executive coach and author of several business books, including Conversational Intelligence, describes the kinds of conversations that activate higher-level intelligence such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment. One of Glaser’s important insights is that our conversations create biochemical reactions—in ourselves, and in others. It starts at the “moment of contact,” she says, between one person and another. To make this work for you, it's helpful to read Glaser's work, to understand the neuroscience behind our interactions. But for starters, here are a few conversational rituals any leader can adopt to deeply connect with others, in a way that builds trust and creates the…

07Jan 2017 by melissa No Comments

Great Bosses Do These Three Things

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If one of your resolutions in the New Year is to become an even better boss, new research suggests your employees won’t just be happier as a result—they’ll also become more productive employees. Stanford Business professor Kathryn Shaw worked on a case study with Edward Lazear and Christopher Stanton which used data-driven analysis to study the influence of supervisors on employee productivity at a bank. According to the study results, the difference in productivity between employees with the best supervisors and others is significant, and measurable. “Replacing a boss who is in the lower 10 percent of boss quality with one who is in the upper 10 percent of boss quality increases a team’s total output by more than adding one worker to a nine-member team would,” the study found.…

26Dec 2016 by melissa No Comments

The Trick to Making Changes That Stick

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Over the last year I’ve written on various aspects of effective leadership, including leading with warmth, tackling difficult conversations, following your inner compass and practicing gratitude. I’ve been thinking lately about how we move from setting an intention—whether it’s to get fit or to tackle difficult conversations—to sustaining that change over the long haul. It’s hard for me to make a lasting change, and I’m guessing it’s hard for others. So I wanted to share some of what experts say about how to effectively set goals and give yourself the best chance of maintaining them. Here is some what what I’ve learned: 1. Identify a goal, make it specific, don't make it too big, and write it down. “Studies have documented that individuals with clear, written goals are significantly more…

17Dec 2016 by melissa No Comments

New Research About What Great Listeners Do

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If you've been coached in the rules of good listening, you may have learned that it is best to stay quiet and not interrupt. Maybe you also learned to repeat back to the other person what you have heard them say. New research, however, suggests that the most effective listeners are those who are involved in a two-way conversation. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman analyzed data from a development program designed to help managers become better coaches, and identified the leaders who were considered the best listeners. Then they sifted through their listening behaviors, and those of others in the program, to identify the difference between great and average listeners. According to Zenger and Folkman, "the highest and best form of listening comes in playing the same role for the…