Start with your character development

Develop character in your family, your organisation and you community
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Be happier, healthier and more successful as a family

Lasting solutions to family struggles come as family members develop character qualities such as obedience, sensitivity and forgiveness. By emphasising, requiring and recognising positive character qualities, you can help your children reach their full potential. Have you ever wondered why some families get along peacefully and find true contentment, while others are ravaged by anger, bitterness, and division?  Common experience indicates money, education and opportunities do not solve these challenges. Character makes a significant difference.

Register for free online family character library. Click here

Trust: The missing ingredient often in the workplace?

Trust relationship gaps are one of the biggest stumbling blocks towards greater transparency and better workplace relationships. Quite simply, If you have lost the trust of your employees - you have lost your credibility as an effective leader.

You can also lose trust by:

•    Not taking appropriate action when others engage in unethical behavior.

•    Not living the Corporate standards of your firm.

•    Not following through on commitments

•    Not communicating openly - even the simple act of being vague and ambiguous can build confusion which creates mistrust.

Some practical tips:

Time for a leadership revolution

TDDI in their Global Leadership Forecast report of 2011 have done some great research asking the following absolutely relevant questions namely:

What is the overall quality of leadership in organisations today?

Do organisations have a sufficient supply of capable leaders to meet the business challenges of tomorrow?  What can HR do to revolutionise the development of their leaders?  Are organisations focusing on developing the right leadership skills? Are organisations using the right methods and approaches?   

Participation consists of 2600 organisations with 12, 423 professionals and 1897 HR professionals from 74 countries (That’s impressive).  The results are mind blowing.  See for yourself.  Leaders are still ineffective as coaches. The current effectiveness of talent management systems is dismal

Only 31% of leaders and HR professionals rated the effectiveness of leadership selection as high

Only 22% of leaders and HR professionals rated their leadership succession systems as highly effective

Only 38% report that the leadership in their organisation is very good (31% good and excellent 7%)

Only one third of leaders and HR professionals rated their leadership developments efforts as highly effective

Watch video by Dr Mario Denton about leadership below

My summary: Time is right to seriously re-evaluate all your talent practices in this regard. The problems may be deeper than you think  
Please contact Mario Denton at marden@mweb.co.za for a copy of this report.

Make sincere deposits, recognise character

He was about 6'4", 260 pounds, ponytail, tattoos, Harley t-shirt, leather jacket, and his nickname was “Bull.” His supervisor was recognizing him publicly for his seventeen years of service. As the supervisor told stories illustrating “Bull’s” willingness to change plans without getting upset, every onlooker saw “Bull” transform to a demeanor reminiscent of a Boy Scout being appreciated for his community service. 

The benevolent leader

In my years of leading manufacturing organizations, I have found a contented employee generally contributes to a cheerful home environment; and when everything is good at home, the employee stands a much better chance of success at work.

Since the average working American spends more waking hours at work than with his or her family, it stands to reason the leader or the environment provided by the manager has a significant influence on an employee’s well-being.

So what does a benevolent business leader look like?

Building a culture of compassion

Although sometimes it may feel that work is simply about making money, most of us want more than just a paycheck. We want a place to work where we have opportunity to earn a living while working with others who genuinely appreciate our contributions to the team.

Often, when organizations are on the decline, they lose their personal touch. Instead of being places where a good work ethic is valued and respected, these organizations become places where cynicism and negativity rule. In time, such organizations will die. People will not continue investing themselves in a place where they feel devalued.

Meeting real needs

We have had many family discussions in the car when we see people on the roadside with handmade cardboard signs. Our decision has been to give to the physical need—by taking food or beverages to them or referring them to an organization that can help.

what motivates compassion?

It takes relationships to be determined

Some days I need someone to listen… and maybe to tell me my rationalizations don’t make sense. Whether you’re trying to stay on a diet, overcome a bad temper, or just exercise more often, you can probably relate.

Be a Good Neighbour

 Do you live in a neighborhood where you feel save and connected to others, or do you feel overcrowded, threatened, and otherwise unsafe in your surroundings? This, and other aspects of neighborhood life, can impact both your level of happiness and stress.

One way you can be a better neighbour and citizen of character is to practice deference.
Deference is practicing civility…especially in disagreement. You might have the right to say or do what you want, but is it helpful? Is it appropriate? Is it treating others as you’d like them to treat you?

Healthy leadership 01: Guard your character or lose your vision

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion." --Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame

Leaders have vision. They share a dream and direction that other people want to share and follow. The leadership vision goes beyond your written organizational mission statement and your vision statement. The vision of leadership permeates the workplace and is manifested in the actions, beliefs, values and goals of your organization’s leaders.

The problem is often leadership do not realise that their sight and vision have become “blurry”. As is the case with medical cataracts, the chances that they will pass unnoticed are virtually none.  The effects of cataracts are devastating: eighteen million people worldwide are blind because of cataracts.  Unfortunately such statistics are not available for managerial cataracts, and neither is the cost of a ‘blind’ manager to an organisation.

Bring back character in organisations

To find out more how to implement character in your organisation
click here

Bring character to your school

Bring Character to your school- Contact us 
marden@mweb.co.za

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Make a Long-Term Investment

Today’s corporate environment places a higher premium on results rather than relationships. Most managers demonstrate an utilitarian attitude towards their employees. Any attempts to put people above profits are interpreted as signs of weakness. Yet employers are grappling with issues of loyalty and commitment. Somehow, we need to enlarge our perspective and view our employees as full-fledged human beings who have lives beyond their corporate responsibilities—to embrace a philosophy of life that is inclusive rather than exclusive. Here are three basic reasons why we are actually wired to understand and that the self-centered life actually works against us in the long-term.

The fox now guards the chickens

SA suffers from what can be described as a moral deficit. It is a disease that seems to be afflicting all strata of society — from government, to business, to the lowliest state functionary.

The mantra seems to be, in that delightful phrase, “it’s my time to eat”.

It’s a feeding frenzy. People are neither afraid nor ashamed to be caught with their fingers in the till. Corruption is so commonplace it doesn’t shock us anymore.

Step One ... Explain the Tools

“Hire for character, train for skills”…is not just a platitude at EDG. It has been the credo that has driven our original principal partners for years.

Have we fallen short sometimes? You bet! The difference is that our leaders wanted to prepare us with tools that will shape who we are…and prepare us for success.

Building Life Around Something Bigger Than Yourself

I'll never forget the day my mother and father called a "family meeting" concerning my dad's job. Dad had been contemplating a career change that would allow him to teach high school and coach football. He knew this change would have an impact on our lives and wanted to talk it over before he gave his final answer.He told my brother and I about the job and explained why he thought it would be a good move for our family.

Change and grow by Marti Vickery

Change is one of the most valuable growing experiences of life. When I first arrived in northwest Florida, a resume did not count. Most folks wanted to know who my parents were, where I went to school, etc. I commonly heard, “You’re not from around here, are you?”For several months, I adapted to staying with family and was grateful for their generosity, but we were somewhat “space challenged” in their “mobile mansion,” and they were stretched financially and needed their privacy.

Cultivating Courage in Business

The odds were against Cynthia Cooper. Raised in a small town and having a humble demeanor, she probably never dreamed she would be featured on the cover of Time magazine. But in 2002 her courageous whistle-blowing halted an $11 billion fraud committed by her boss and co-workers at WorldCom.She was ostracized by peers and received international media scrutiny. While it is unlikely we will ever face the kind of drama that she encountered, there are valuable lessons that can be applied to daily life.First, Ms. Cooper thoughtfully considered alternatives and bravely questioned her higher-ups before reporting the wrongdoing. She did not rush to judgment, nor did she allow her superiors to undermine her confidence.

Do your job define who you are?

“If you are unhappy in your work, you are unhappy in your life.”  - Rodney Lowman, 1996 (author of The Clinical Practice of Career Assessment)

The way people live and interact with society and their material world is structured around work. In a truly globalised market-place, work opportunities are too diverse, too numerous and shifting too fast to be bundled neatly into career packages with precise focus. Labour experts predict that five to ten careers during one’s working life will become the norm. This implies adaptation to new working environments and continual skill and knowledge building for individuals. The responsibility for developing and managing his or her career to maintain employability and attain satisfaction and enjoyment will rest on the individual.