Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Business Ethics Challenge

Making sure employees adhere to corporate ethics policies
has always been a challenge, and changes mandated by
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and other new rules have
raised the stakes for companies.

The biggest hurdles to enforcing global compliance of
ethics programs are often rooted in cultural differences.
Workers around the world often have widely differing
feelings about reporting ethical violations at work.

In many cases, U.S. workers are wary of stepping forward
to report ethics violations, according to Patricia Harned,
acting president of the Ethics Resource Center in
Washington, D.C.  A survey by the group found that 44%
of all nonmanagement employees don't report misconduct
they observe.  The top two reasons for not reporting
were "a belief that no corrective action will be taken" and
"fear that the report will not be kept confidential."

For an ethical action test, go to:
http://coachedtosuccess.com/coachthee/Archives/BusinessEthics.html

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2004

It's lonely at the top.

Isolation and lack of time to think may be the bane of every CEO's existence.

The more CEOs work and the more responsibilities they
take on, the more isolated they become. Their spot at
the top cuts them off from the people lower down on
the corporate totem pole, and thus from reliable,
"un-spun" information.

So what's a CEO to do?  Why, get help, of course! 

No single definition can capture what every executive
coach does. But most coaches who work with CEOs
seem to be part confessor, part behavioral therapist,
and part management consultant.  And all coaches will
tell you that unlike the members of the "C-suite," on
whom the CEO relies, they aren't angling for his job, they
have no vested interest in the company, and they will
come in with a fresh perspective. 

CEO coaching comes in many varieties. One is aimed at
helping the executive hop off the treadmill long enough
to think.  "Coaching is a way to have an outboard
processor, someone who's helping you process your own
experience, which is just coming at you too fast and too
furiously," says Rachel Bellow, a consultant and executive
coach based in Manhattan.  Call this "outsourcing your
self-reflection"—bringing in help to do the kinds of thinking
you might not have time to do on your own (Was I too
hard on my CFO at the corporate retreat?), or would prefer
not to (Was it because he reminds me of the bully from
my junior high school?).

Simply, the coach is a secret advisor and has no other
relationship in the CEO's life---that allows both parties to
say the "unsayable to each other" and get to a place of
self-awareness where great leverage for change can
happen.

Source: Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic, Nov 2004

Do you blog?

62% of Americans have no idea what a blog is.

The answer: A frequently updated website consisting of personal observations and excerpts from other sources, typically run by a single person.

Jacob Crossman, a software engineer at Soar Technology Inc. in Ann Arbor, MI, uses blogging tools from Palo Alto, CA-based Socialtext Inc. to keep an up-to-date
engineering notebook on his ideas about a particular project that can be accessed by other project participants.

"One of the disadvantages of a paper-based engineering notebook is that it's hard to find things unless you want to go through it manually," Crossman says. "So I decided
to use the blog feature of Socialtext's software to keep track of my ideas. I would type them in, and then they're immediately searchable using another feature of the software."  He is also able to link to other documents about the project using the blog entry.

Crossman is not alone. Weblogs, or blogs, which let anyone with an Internet browser and some easy-to-use software publish a personalized diary online, have started to emerge as a valuable knowledge management and communication tool in business.

Sources: ComputerWorld, Jan 26, 2004 and BusinessWeek, Jan 31, 2005

Predictable periods of uncertainty

Two out of every five CEOs fail in the first 18 months
(Harvard Business Review, January 2005).  Recent
corporate bankruptcies reveal that some CEOs fail on
such a scale as to bring down the company with them.

Even the most honored, effective and acclaimed leaders
go through periods of uncertainty, frustration and failure.

These periods can be triggered by both professional and
personal events: coping with a bad boss, going through
a divorce, taking over a demanding new assignment,
living abroad with minimal headquarters contact and
many others.

However, this time can be one of great personal growth
and learning in developing the executive's leadership
style and effectiveness.  Predictable and intense life
passages pave the way for moving to the next level
in a successful leader's career.

For the business case on why leaders in new positions
fail, go to: http://home.att.net/~coachthee/next/index.html

John G. Agno
Certified Executive & Business Coach

Source: Leadership Passages: The Personal and
Professional Transitions that Make or Break a Leader,
by David L. Dotlich, James L. Noel and Norman Walker
(Jossey-Bass)