How Blooming is your Linkedin Set-up?

Is your LinkedIn profile as effective as it should be?	While you can see your “profile completeness” score on your profile page, it doesn’t measure profile effectiveness — how good your profile is at attracting contacts, generating leads and showing off your skills.  Consider this checklist when updating your profile next time.   Use the name you’re known by. Perhaps your name is Robert, but most people know you as Rob or Bob. Or, for women, perhaps you worked under a maiden name for years. Use the name that most people know you by professionally. Cover all your bases by using your main name in your basic information and mention any other names elsewhere such as in the “Professional Headline” field, or in your recommendations. Upload a professional photo. It’s worth the price to use a professional photographer. Create an effective Professional Headline. Add a “Professional Headline” in the “Edit My Profile” page. This is a short bio that sums up what you do. Mine says, “Content Maven aka writer and editor behind meryl.net.”Pick the industry that best represents what you do. Alternatively, you could use your clients’ industry if they all come from the same one. Enter details for current and past positions. Highlight the activities that represent what you do or want to do by mentioning them first. Write a summary that highlights your most important business information. Keep your summary clear and to the point. Remember you can list details under “Current Position.” The point of a summary is to give people instant information on what you do. I’ve looked at various summaries, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. I used to have a bulleted list, but switched to a short paragraph. When I come across long paragraphs in the summary, I find them hard to read and follow. The shorter ones hold my attention and get the point across fast.List your web sites and blog. Rather than using the name of your web site and blog, use keywords that describe what you do. For example, I use “Writer for hire and blog” instead of “your own name notes,” the name of the blog. Add your Twitter ID.If you haven’t already, add your Twitter name. Request recommendations. It’s OK to ask people to recommend you, but make sure you ask the right people. Write recommendations. Writing recommendations can lead to receiving recommendations. Add applications to enhance your profile. If you have a blog, feed your blog entries into your LinkedIn account with one of LinkedIn’s applications. You can also turn LinkedIn into an online document collaboration platform. Send selected Twitter tweets to LinkedIn. While you can connect your Twitter account to your LinedIn profile, many of us tweet too often or tweet about things that would be irrelevant to our LinkedIn contacts. Instead, select just the tweets you want to show up in your LinkedIn profile by adding the hashtag “#in” to the tweet. You can turn on this feature in Twitter Settings. Select what to display in your public profile. People not connected to you can only see what you allow them to see by setting your Public Profile options. The more you reveal, the easier it is for people to know if they have the right person. Here, you can also set up your Public Profile URL, which shows up as to http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.Review your settings. Though I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time, I still run into new features and settings. Settings cover everything from profile views and email notifications to personal information and privacy settings. You can provide advice on how people should contact you on the Contact Settings page. Mine says, “Email is the best way to reach me.”  Source: Web Worker Daily by Meryl Evans
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Learning to Lead

Herminia Ibarra , Professor of Organizational Behavior, and Faculty Director of the INSEAD Leadership Initiative, contests that we learn to lead in relationship, by becoming a part of a community and network of leaders, but what we preach, however, is very different.   Let's draw some inferences by considering a few schools of thought: Situational leadership, — originally conceived as the antidote to the great man theories of leadership. The situational school brought us the notion of "fit:" person to situation and leader to follower. The original version said the situation makes the leader. The simpler version we retained says something else altogether, that good leaders choose among the leadership styles or change strategies in their repertoire the one that best matches their current situation.    Discover your strengths — another great example of a one-sided and static focus on personal attributes that make people effective leaders. According to this theory, we can categorize ourselves according to a number of themes and clusters of themes that describe our strengths; once identified, they help us make decisions about what situation best match us. Practice — From Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated we learn about the magic rule of 10,000 hours. Bill Gates, we are told, became a computer wiz because he had access to an early computer and was able to clock the requisite number of hours. Putting in the hours, not innate talent, makes the leader.   Prof. Ibarra's research on how effective managers make the transition to bigger, broader leadership roles and cements their contribution to the growth and transformation of their organization, incorporates 4 key enablers: o    Motivate the transition to leadership. When asked to do things that don't come naturally, we implicitly ask ourselves "am I the sort of person who behaves this way?" "Do I want to be that sort of person?". When managers' identification is rooted in functional groups or expert communities, the answers are negative when it comes to leadership, and thus it is no surprise that they do not sustain the arduous practice it takes to develop as leaders. On the other hand, when they identify with recognized leaders, learning to lead is motivated by the desire to become a member of a valued group. o    Make the "competencies" come alive. One of the difficult things about learning to lead is distinguishing between "what" (content knowledge) and "how to" (process knowledge). We may know, for example, that "sensing external trends" is a critical competency in forging a strategic direction, and we may also want to become more like the leaders we know who are very good at that. But, how does one actually learn to strategize? In a successful learning cycle, role models, peer groups and communities of practice motivate change by changing our reference point on what is desirable and possible, and then once motivated, providing tacit knowledge on how to do it. o    Experiment from the outside in. Many aspiring leaders struggle to stretch their leadership within their current organization and roles. Caught in between delivery pressures and outdated views of their capacities, they more quickly or easily find roles outside the organization that allow them to lead. Their new activities, in professional organizations, clubs, informal advisory and so on, create external identities that they eventually internalize. o    Build external support & networks to sustain change. Often it is hard to get support for change from old mentors, bosses or trusted colleagues. They may have good intentions but maintain of what we can and should do that are based in the past and not the future. People and groups, on the fringe of our existing networks help us push off in new directions while providing the secure base in which change can take hold, one of the reasons why learning methods like peer coaching are so powerful.   O2ibm

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Thinking Ahead as a True Leader

The ability to 'think ahead' and plan a strategy, implies keeping in touch with employee opinions, technological advances and market trends that will help shape your vision - to be shared. Leaders, by definition, must have followers that aspire to the leader’s vision. Once you’ve  'thought ahead' into the future, you need to communicate your vision with conviction and confidence, as to inspire, energize and unite your team. A leader must be capable of shaping internal politics that will support performance improvement initiatives. During times of change, uncertainty and fear reign supreme. As a result, leaders confronting strategic and organizational change, have to manage communication effectively. As a leader, you have to portray a compelling vision for the future, while implementing change.  Processes that build a shared vision of the future, create positive coalitions, and allow open expression of competing views will prepare people for the change. Motivating people to peak performance is a must of  leadership. But how can you unleash the full individual emotional commitment and collective potential of your people so that they achieve higher levels of performance? Generating emotional energy and commitment takes time and effort, as to ensure that the right balance between achieving the task, building the team and  sustaining morale.

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Integrative Leadership: A collaborative model that delivers results

"In the twenty-first century a new vision of leadership is needed more than ever. Leaders must integrate knowledge and talent from individuals in the private, not-for-profit, and government sectors to advance the common good."   Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman Carlson School of Management Integrative Leadership  = leadership that promotes innovative, responsible, and effective solutions to cross-sector challenges locally, nationally, and globally.     Integrative leadership identifies the common ground among sectors and leverages their unique influence and resources to better move organizations, communities, and society forward in times of increased interconnection and rapid change. The Center for Integrative Leadership at the Carlson School of Management - University of Minnesota aims to better understand how collective action across sectors (business, government, nonprofits, media, academia) and geographic boundaries can solve some of the world’s most pressing and complex societal problems. Integrative leadership is driven by the following key concepts: Inclusion Involving stakeholders who can affect change in the process is a crucial task. Shared purpose Getting key stakeholders to agree on common purpose is critical to building sustainable solutions. Systemic thinking Helping members of a group to see the interdependencies of various actions and contributions they make to resolve a problem contributes to greater understanding of a problem and increased support for the solution. Sometimes, the least obvious factors are the most important. Inquiry Questioning all of the stated or unstated assumptions about the problem and facilitating an open and honest analysis of alternative points of view leads to fuller engagement by stakeholders. Consideration should be given to multiple working hypotheses. Constructive dialogue Choosing language and methods of developing shared meaning is important. Innovation Creatively resolving differences among opposing ideas can lead to innovative outcomes. Many problems are solved when a group uses inquiry to discover a new solution or a variation of a solution that is acceptable to members of the group.   O2ibm > Learn & Lead

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