The 90th Percentile: An Unconventional Leadership Podcast

Details Is it possible to be a high-standards, results-driven leader while at the same time building an engaged, fun-to-work-with team? Many people would contend that doing either of these things well makes it almost impossible to succeed at the other. And yet our examination of 360-degree assessment data from more than 60,000 leaders showed us … Continued The post Episode 105: Behavioral Bridges—Increasing Employee Engagement While Driving For Results first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details Chances are you think you’re a great listener. People’s appraisal of their listening ability is much like their assessment of their driving skills, in that the great bulk of adults think they’re above average. What really makes a manager a great listener? Many assume that it involves three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along … Continued The post Episode 5: What Great Listeners Actually Do first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details Regardless of who you are in an organization — a great question can help you learn more about your task, unlock hidden opportunities, deliver better results, and mitigate unforeseen risks. In general, most of us don’t ask enough questions because we fail to recognize the enormous benefits in terms of interpersonal bonding and how … Continued The post Episode 104: The Lost Art of Asking Good Questions first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details What skills do you really need from your workforce? What skills are most valuable What are the critical issues? If the answers were clear, every organization would likely change. There are literally thousands of variables that leave leaders baffled as they sift through the clutter of needs and options to decide what is really crucial. … Continued The post Episode 103: Skills, Skills, and More Skills— Finding What the Organization Values Most first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details Leaders are experiencing more demands for compassion at a time when there’s not a lot of room for compromise on what they have to deliver. Do they have to choose between kindness/compassion and the expectations for performance? We wanted to understand how we maximize support and, at the same time, drive performance. In this … Continued The post Episode 102: Leading with Kindness and Accountability first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details Most managers want their employees to be curious and experimental, to take the initiative and develop new products and solutions. But, as it turns out, managers also like to micromanage and control outcomes through safe, predictable processes. As a result, managers end up stifling the very experimentation they want to foster. In this episode, … Continued The post Episode 101: How to Push Your Team to Take Risks first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details We’ve all heard the claims, the theories, and the speculation about the ways leadership styles vary between women and men. There are, of course, many factors that contribute to this absence of a greater abundance of women leaders in senior-level positions. For centuries, there have been broad cultural biases against women, and stereotypes die slowly. In an … Continued The post Episode 23: Are Women Better Leaders Than Men? first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

Details No one expects ever to be described as an arrogant or complacent boss. Most leaders we know have the assumption that their career will be akin to a musical crescendo. It may start quietly and slowly, but they believe that as they age, more responsibility will come. And because of their years of experience, … Continued The post Episode 100: The Unexpected Bad Habits of Leaders first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.

This episode explores the ordinary habits of highly effective coaches and the impact they have on their direct reports' engagement. Highly effective coaches create a positive environment and focus on reinforcing feedback. The episode also discusses the correlation between coaching effectiveness and employee engagement.

Details Executives in every company we work with express concerns about their ability to attract and retain managerial talent. The solutions for most organizations are to either recruit young workers directly from school and invest in their development, pirate leadership talent from competitors, or find it internally. Of these alternatives, we strongly advocate that organizations … Continued The post Episode 98: Discover and Develop Hidden Talent Pools first appeared on ZENGER FOLKMAN.