Dogs can teach us a thing or two. Have you ever thought about how to apply canine behavior to your leadership style? There are interesting approaches your dog would encourage you to try if you want to be a better leader. Today’s post is by Krissi Barr, co-author of The Fido Factor: How to Get a Leg Up at Work. If you’re like most Americans you love dogs. Unlike a goldfish won at a church festival, people form deep and meaningful relationships with their canine pals. So what does any of this have to do with leadership? As it turns out, a lot. Leadership is more art than science, and more emotion than logic. The actions and behaviors that roll up to form an effective leader, when you boil them down, are actually pretty simple. And they are very similar to why we love dogs so darn much. Dogs are faithful, inspirational, determined and observant. These four core qualities—the Fido Factors—are the basis of the unexpected reason why we can learn leadership lessons from dogs. Take a dog’s tail. It’s a crystal clear barometer of how they are feeling. Happy and it wags like crazy, guilty and it curls under out of shame. Dogs are simply incapable of hiding how they feel. They can’t lie. Not so much with humans. Like a professional poker player, most of us have gotten very good at hiding our emotions in the workplace. And while there are times when that’s a good thing, more often than not we’d benefit from wagging our tail a little more. Dogs don’t hide how they feel. Take a typical day coming home after work. There to greet you at the front door is your dog. His smiling face, a slobbery tennis ball in the mouth and a wagging […]

  Building a high performance culture requires focus, dedication, and a relentless drive to make the organization function at peak levels. Can you transform your organization into a high performance culture? Today’s post is by Hugh Blane, President of Claris Consulting and author of 7 Principles of Transformational Leadership (CLICK HERE to get your copy). It was one of the most thrilling moments in my life. I was doing 187 miles per hour at the Porsche racing school in what is best described as a rocket ship built on four wheels. The engine, only a few inches from my head, pounded in my chest as if I was receiving CPR, and the trees flew by so fast that they were no longer trees, but more a blurry green swatch of color out of the corner of my right eye. I came to learn how to drive fast. Learning the subtle nuances of shifting gears, acceleration and braking vastly improved my lap time and left me with a greatly enhanced mindset behind the wheel. High performance cars are similar to high performance cultures. You can choose to drive a car that is purely functional transportation, or you can choose to drive a car that is one part engineering masterpiece, one part handcrafted artwork, and one part a catalyst for supreme exhilaration. Every leader should look at their culture as a Ferrari sitting in their driveway and recognize that the keys are in their hand. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of you, the level of intimidation about a Ferrari’s performance leaves the car looking good but not driven to its potential. Driving a culture that is the equivalent of a finely tuned sports car requires embracing five high performance mindset shifts. They are: High performance cultures are hand built. Not unlike Ferraris, […]