Paul Falcone - Leadership Offense: Mastering Appraisal, Performance, and Professional Development

2022 Paul Falcone

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Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

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Topic 1: From The Leader-as-Coach: 10 Questions You Need to Ask to Develop Employees. SHRM HR Daily Newsletter, October 24, 2016. Copyright 2016 by the Society for Human Resource Management. Topic 18: From 5 Strategies to Motivate Burned Out Workers. SHRM HR Daily Newsletter, July 12, 2019. Copyright 2019 by the Society for Human Resource Management. Topic 15: From Amending Your Performance Review Template for the COVID-19 Pandemic. SHRM HR Daily Newsletter, September 11, 2020. Copyright 2020 by the Society for Human Resource Management. Topic 19: From Servant Leadership for a New Generation. SHRM HR Daily Newsletter, July 17, 2021. Copyright 2021 by the Society for Human Resource Management. Topic 20: From How to Be a Favorite Boss. SHRM HR Daily Newsletter, May 22, 2020. Copyright 2020 by the Society for Human Resource Management. All of the above used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-4002-3011-2 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-3004-4 (TP)

Epub Edition December 2021 9781400230112

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951253

Printed in the United States of America

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Ebook Instructions

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Leadership offense, like leadership defense, draws on common terms from the sports world to get us all on the same page. After all, most of us know the difference between any teams offensive and defensive roles and strategies, whether youre talking football, basketball, baseball, hockey, or just about any other sport. Interestingly enough, this same paradigm applies to the business world and, more specifically, to leadership. After all, building the muscle of your organizations frontline leadership team is the whole goal of the Paul Falcone Workplace Leadership Series, and in building that muscle for your entire team, youre likewise building it for yourself. Once leadership muscles are honed and developed, you can continue to nurture themand rely on themfor the rest of your career. Do it right and get it right up front by establishing strong habits, and then benefit from this dedicated exercise forever more. Thats a wise investment with a great return.

The offensive side of leadership is just what youre thinking: How do you motivate and retain staff? How do you create a work environment where people feel engaged and look to expend discretionary effort, both for their immediate managers sake as well as for the companys? What does it take to get someone to fall in love with their organization and reach their own personal best at work? Even more significantly, how do you channel the energy and efforts of your highest performers to move the middlethose employees who make up 70 percent of the organization and who may be performing well in general but lack the passion and personal commitment to do their best work every day?

Sounds like such huge questions that you could write a book about it, right? Thats because these elements of human and organizational behavior are the primary profit levers of your enterprise. Think about it: proprietary products last only for so long before patents run out, technical and software competitive advantages are fleeting and eventually get consumed by the broader market, and time-bound advantages (for example, low interest rates) will expire at some point, leaving you to rely on something else to set your organization apart from its competition. So, what helps one company distinguish itself from others over the long haul? The human capital asset. The human beings who create, sell, and distribute the product in manufacturing, sales, marketing, and distribution; the internal support teams that care for those asset-generating departments, like human resources, IT, and finance; and the senior leadership team that ensures that sufficient revenue and profits are generated to keep the organization healthy.

Without a doubt, no true leadership development program can get far without a keen focus on the motivations, engagement, commitment, accountability, and other positive considerations that make people happy at work and that create a healthy environment. So how do you create that state on a consistent and sustainable basis? Book 3 represents our opportunity to explore positivity at work, the importance of recognition, the value of the learning curve, and the critical nature of selfless leadership, open communication, and successful teambuilding.

Lets prepare to explore what it means to coach (rather than manage) employees. Lets look at creating a performance management system that encourages high productivity and holds everyone accountable to delivering at the highest levels. And lets pull back the curtain on what it takes to build a leadership development program that not only attracts the best and brightest but retains them while they garner achievements and build new skills over time. This is definitely within your reach, both as an individual contributor and as a leader. You can create this level of awareness for those you are entrusted to lead and mentor. You can likewise pay this forward by passing your philosophy, teaching, and professional development strategies along to those who report to you and ultimately follow in your footsteps.

Leadership is the greatest gift the workplace offers because it gives you the opportunity to positively influence others lives and create more leaders in turn. Lets work together to build this muscle, hone this craft, and create this philosophy that helps us excel, immediately benefits those whom we lead, and provides a competitive advantage to your organization. You are the talent asset; you are the profit lever. Now is the opportunity to reinvent, reflect, facilitate, include, and amplify others assigned to your care. Its time to make your world bigger, to expand your line of sight, and to recognize and appreciate the awesome opportunity you hold as a leader. I consider myself so fortunate to engage and accompany you in this adventure!