Turnover rates for all senior executives have increased significantly during the past decade ... in excess of 50 percent. In fact, they're up over three times the rate that they were throughout most of the 1990s.  Over 64 percent of new CEOs (whose data is most readily available) fail to make it through their fourth year in the job, while 40 percent are gone in 18 months.

The problem is not that executives can't do their jobs, says Nat Stoddard and Claire Wyckoff recently wrote about this in their new book The Right Leader: Selecting Executives that Fit.  The problem often lies in the fact that they may not fit the situation well enough to deliver the changes expected of them. By "fit" we mean how well an executives' character (especially their values and beliefs) aligns with the culture of the company where the necessary and expected changes must be delivered. If the character of the leader is not closely aligned with that of the organization, then, as Peter Drucker originally pointed out, followership will not occur ... people won't trust a leader who doesn't share their values, and, without trust, they will not follow him or her. It is this lack of proper "fit" that causes so many senior executives to fail.

When you're considering a promotion or a move, the key is to ensure not only that your skills and abilities match up with the needs of the organization, but that you fit well with the organization's culture. There are three things to consider: the culture of the organization at large, that of the team of which you will be a member, and that of the team you'll be expected to lead.

The following are a few suggestions for reducing the risks of becoming a casualty of cultural conflict:

1. Know thyself. We encourage candidates to take a number of psychological and behavioral assessments. It is vital to understand yourself as fully as possible ... especially your business-related beliefs and decision-making processes. It's also helpful to identify those aspects of different cultures that you relate to and those you don't. Write them down and refer to them as you gather data about the opportunities under consideration.

2. Inquire about the cultures at hand. Do the people you are interviewing treat culture as "that soft 'people' stuff?" That in itself tells you a great deal about the relative importance of culture in this organization, and its members' understanding of the challenges facing newly appointed leaders like yourself.

3. Use your network to verify what you have observed about the company's cultures. Former employees, suppliers, or consultants can shed light on what you will actually encounter. You can also ask to obtain permission to talk to a few potential peers, direct reports, your boss's boss, and members of the board. Think through the questions you want to ask about "how things get done around here" to get a sense of how much agreement there is about the makeup of the organization's culture.

Remember, while a new situation may seem like the perfect match, failing to fit adequately with the company cultures you encounter will increase your chances of becoming a turnover statistic. What's more, the higher up you go in any organization, the more important fit becomes ... and the more difficult it is to recover from a situation that "just didn't work out."

Life is good.

Marshall

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

It's an age-old question: Are we influenced more by nature or nurture? Applied to leadership, the question becomes: Are great leaders born or made? It's one of the most frequently asked questions in leadership development.

Let's start with the definition of "leader." My good friend and mentor, Dr. Paul Hersey, defines leadership as "working with and through others to achieve objectives." Given this definition, anyone in a position whose achievement requires support from others can play the role of a leader. I love this definition because it supports the philosophy of "leadership at all levels," which is so critical in today's world of knowledge workers.

Indeed, millions of people who are currently working with and though others to achieve objectives are already leaders. Whether they think of themselves as leaders, not to mention whether they are fantastic or disastrous leaders, is another issue.

So, can people who are already working to influence others become more effective leaders? The answer is an unqualified "yes."

My partner, Howard Morgan, and I conducted an extensive study on leadership development programs involving more than 86,000 participants in eight major corporations. Our findings were so conclusive that they are almost impossible to dispute. Leaders who participated in a development program, received 360-degree feedback, selected important areas for improvement, discussed these with co-workers, and followed-up with them on a consistent basis (to check on progress) were rated as becoming dramatically better leaders—not in a self-assessment, but in appraisals from co-workers—6 to 18 months after the initial program.

Five ways to become a better leader

Leaders who participated in the same developmental programs and received the same type of feedback—but did not follow-up—were seen as improving by no more than random chance would imply. Here are some specific ways to increase your leadership effectiveness:

1. Get 360-degree feedback on your present level of effectiveness, as judged by co-workers you respect.

2. Pick the most important behaviors for change—those you believe will enhance your effectiveness as a leader—e.g., "become a more effective listener" or "make decisions in a timelier manner").

3. Periodically ask co-workers for suggestions on how you can do an even better job in your selected behaviors for change.

4. Listen to their ideas—don't promise to change everything—and make the changes that you believe will further increase your effectiveness.

5. Follow-up and measure change in your effectiveness over time.

Are leaders born or made? If you are working with and through others to achieve objectives, you are already a leader. Can you become a more effective leader? Definitely.

Life is good.

Marshall

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

Photo: Joep R. / © All rights reserved

Feedback is often described as painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable. It can easily feel like the dreaded blame game focusing on past mistakes. Meanwhile, participants describe feedforward as fun and helpful..focusing on the future.  Following are the reasons why feedforward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.

1. We can change the future. We can't change the past. Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Athletes are often trained using feedforward. Racecar drivers are taught to, "Look at the road ahead, not at the wall." Basketball players are taught to envision the ball going in the hoop and to imagine the perfect shot. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

2. It can be more productive to help people be "right," than prove they were "wrong." Negative feedback often becomes an exercise in "let me prove you were wrong." This tends to produce defensiveness on the part of the receiver and discomfort on the part of the sender. Even constructively delivered feedback is often seen as negative as it necessarily involves a discussion of mistakes, shortfalls, and problems. Feedforward, on the other hand, is almost always seen as positive because it focuses on solutions - not problems.

3. Feedforward is especially suited to successful people. Successful people like getting ideas that are aimed at helping them achieve their goals. They tend to resist negative judgment. We all tend to accept feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We also tend to reject or deny feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. Successful people tend to have a very positive self-image. I have observed many successful executives respond to (and even enjoy) feedforward. I am not sure that these same people would have had such a positive reaction to feedback.

4. Feedforward can come from anyone who knows about the task. It does not require personal experience with the individual. One very common positive reaction to the previously described exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people that they don't know! For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow leader can give you ideas on how you can improve. They don't have to know you. Feedback requires knowing about the person. Feedforward just requires having good ideas for achieving the task.

5. People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. In theory, constructive feedback is supposed to "focus on the performance, not the person". In practice, almost all feedback is taken personally (no matter how it is delivered). Successful people's sense of identity is highly connected with their work. The more successful people are, the more this tends to be true. It is hard to give a dedicated professional feedback that is not taken personally. Feedforward cannot involve a personal critique, since it is discussing something that has not yet happened! Positive suggestions tend to be seen as objective advice - personal critiques are often viewed as personal attacks.

6. Feedback can reinforce personal stereotyping and negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward can reinforce the possibility of change. Feedback can reinforce the feeling of failure. How many of us have been "helped" by a spouse, significant other or friend, who seems to have a near-photographic memory of our previous "sins" that they share with us in order to point out the history of our shortcomings. Negative feedback can be used to reinforce the message, "this is just the way you are". Feedforward is based on the assumption that the receiver of suggestions can make positive changes in the future.

7. Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don't like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360 degree feedback reports for over 50 companies. The items, "provides developmental feedback in a timely manner" and "encourages and accepts constructive criticism" almost always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were "improved", most should be perfect by now! Leaders are not very good at giving or receiving negative feedback. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future.

8. Feedforward can cover almost all of the same "material" as feedback. Imagine that you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you "relive" this humiliating experience, your manager might help you prepare for future presentations by giving you suggestions for the future. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way. In this way your manager can "cover the same points" without feeling embarrassed and without making you feel even more humiliated.

9. Feedforward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say, "Here are four ideas for the future. Please accept these in the positive spirit that they are given. If you can only use two of the ideas, you are still two ahead. Just ignore what doesn't make sense for you." With this approach almost no time gets wasted on judging the quality of the ideas or "proving that the ideas are wrong". This "debate" time is usually negative; it can take up a lot of time, and it is often not very productive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver. Successful people tend to have a high need for self-determination and will tend to accept ideas that they "buy" while rejecting ideas that feel "forced" upon them.

10. Feedforward can be a useful tool to apply with managers, peers and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative - or even career-limiting - unintended consequences when applied to managers or peers. Feedforward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful "fellow traveler" than an "expert". As such it can be easier to hear from a person who is not in a position of power or authority. An excellent team building exercise is to have each team member ask, "How can I better help our team in the future?" and listen to feedforward from fellow team members (in one-on-one dialogues.)

11. People tend to listen more attentively to feedforward than feedback. One participant is the feedforward exercise noted, "I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever do at work!" When asked why, he responded, "Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart - that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying. In feedforward, the only reply that I am allowed to make is ‘thank you'. Since I don't have to worry about composing a clever reply - I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!"

In summary, the intent of this article is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how feedforward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, feedforward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When managers are asked, "How did you feel the last time you received feedback?" their most common responses are very negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving feedforward, they reply that feedforward was not only useful, it was also fun!

Quality communication - between and among people at all levels and every department and division - is the glue that holds organizations together. By using feedforward - and by encouraging others to use it - leaders can dramatically improve the quality of communication in their organizations, ensuring that the right message is conveyed, and that those who receive it are receptive to its content. The result is a much more dynamic, much more open organization - one whose employees focus on the promise of the future rather than dwelling on the mistakes of the past.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

In analyzing how we spend our time, whether personally or professionally, it can be helpful to consider two dimensions: short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit. Both have value. It can be disappointing to live our lives with no meaning or pleasure in the here and now, just as it can be unfulfilling to live only for today.

Questions like, "Does this activity make me happy?" or "Do I find meaning in the activity itself?" can help us gauge the degree of short-term satisfaction that we get from any activity. Questions like, "Are the results achieved from this activity worth my effort?" or "Is the successful completion of this activity going to have a long-term positive impact on my life?" can help us gauge our expectations for potential long-term benefit from any activity.

The graph above shows five different modes of behavior and how they can characterize our relationship to any activity -- either at work or at home.

Stimulating is for activities that score high in short-term satisfaction but low in long-term benefit. An example of a "stimulating" activity may be the use of drugs or alcohol. While the activity may provide short-term satisfaction, it may be dysfunctional for long-term benefit. At work, gossiping with co-workers may be fun for a while, but it is probably not career- or business-enhancing. A life spent solely on stimulating activities could provide a lot of short-term pleasure but still be headed nowhere.

Sacrificing is for activities that score low in short-term satisfaction but high in long-term benefit. An extreme example of sacrificing could involve dedicating your life to work that you hate because you feel like you "have to" to achieve a larger goal. A more common example might be working out (when you don't feel like it) to improve your long-term health. At work, sacrificing might be spending extra hours on a project to help enhance your career prospects. A life spent solely on sacrificing activities would be the life of a martyr -- lots of achievement, but not much joy.

Surviving is for activities that score low on short-term satisfaction and low on long-term benefit. These are activities that don't cause much joy or satisfaction and do not contribute to long-term benefit in your life. These are typically activities that we are doing because we feel that we have to do them in order just to get by. Charles Dickens frequently described the lives of people who were almost constantly in the surviving box. These poor people had countless hours of hard work, not much joy, and not much to show for all of their efforts. A life spent solely on surviving activities would be a hard one indeed.

Sustaining is for activities that produce moderate amounts of short-term satisfaction and lead to moderate long-term benefits. For many professionals, the daily answering of e-mails is a sustaining activity. It is moderately interesting (not thrilling) and usually produces moderate long-term but hardly life-changing benefit. At home, the day-to-day routine of shopping, cooking, and cleaning may be viewed as sustaining. A life spent solely on sustaining activities would be an O.K. one -- not great, yet not too bad.

Succeeding is a term for activities that score high on short-term satisfaction and high on long-term benefit. These activities are the ones that we love to do and get great benefit from doing. At work, people who spend a lot of time in the succeeding box love what they are doing and believe that it is producing long-term benefit at the same time. At home, a parent may be spending hours with a child; time that the parent greatly enjoys while valuing the long-term benefit that will come to the child. A life spent in succeeding is a life that is filled with both joy and accomplishment.

The perception of both short-term satisfaction and long-term benefit is dependent upon the individual engaged in the activity. Consider an immigrant who leaves a poor country and comes to the U.S., where she works 18 hours a day at two minimum-wage jobs. She may have a great attitude toward her work and be saving every possible cent for her children's education. She may define her life as being largely spent in the succeeding category -- filled with short-term happiness and long-term benefit.

At the other end of the professional scale, one CEO could feel resentful and grumpy about her work (and feel trapped) because a drop in stock value means that she will have to work another couple of years to have the $10 million she told herself she needed in order to retire. She might see herself in the surviving category. Another CEO in a similar situation could feel happy and fulfilled at the prospect of leading a major organization through challenging times and see herself in the succeeding category.

The point is two people could be engaged in the same activity but have completely different perceptions of what this activity means to them. It's because no one can define what short-term satisfaction or long-term benefit means for you but you. My suggestion for you is simple. Spend a week tracking how you spend your time. At the end of the week calculate how many hours you spent on stimulating, sacrificing, surviving, sustaining, or succeeding. Then ask yourself what changes you can make to help you create a life that is both more satisfying in the short-term and more rewarding in the long-term.

While the activities that take up our time can be one factor in determining our happiness and achievement, our attitude toward these activities can be an equally important factor in determining the ultimate quality of our lives. If we cannot change our activities, we can at least try to change our attitude toward them.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

Life is good.

Marshall

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

#MOJOtweet

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com

Marshall's Upcoming Schedule

Most parents will tell you they just want their kids to grow up to be happy (even if they're nudging them toward the Ivy League). But how does an adult achieve a high level of contentment while living a frenetic and distraction-packed life? Kelly, my daughter and I have just reviewed results from our new survey designed to elicit insights into short-term satisfaction (happiness) and long-term benefit (meaning)—both at work and away from it. Our respondents weren't randomly chosen. They're well-educated (more than 60% have graduate degrees) managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals (split almost evenly between the sexes), numbering over 3,000.

Our findings were in many cases unexpected but clear-cut. There is an incredibly high correlation between people's happiness and meaning at work and at home. In other words, those who experience happiness and meaning at work tend also to experience them outside of work. Those who are miserable on the job are usually miserable at home.

The implication is unmistakable. Since work and home are very different environments, our experience of happiness and meaning in life appears to have more to do with who we are than where we are. Rather than blaming our jobs, our managers, and our customers—or our friends, family members, and communities—for our negative worklife experience, we might be better served by looking in the mirror.

One commonly expressed excuse for not getting more happiness and meaning out of life is: "I'm working too many hours." But our results show that the number of hours worked had no significant correlation with happiness or meaning experienced at work or at home. So much for that excuse.

Part of our survey asked respondents to rate their overall satisfaction level at work. Again, our findings paint a clear picture. The amount of time respondents spent solely on stimulating activities (high short-term satisfaction but low long-term benefit) had no bearing on their satisfaction at work. The same was true of more purposeful activities (low short-term satisfaction but high long-term benefit). Overall satisfaction at work increased only if both the amount of happiness and meaning experienced by employees simultaneously increased. This indicates that professionals don't gain satisfaction at work either by being "martyrs" or by "just having fun." Companies may want to reduce communications designed to encourage employees to make sacrifices for the larger cause. They may also want to cut out "fun" morale-building events that lack a meaningful purpose.

We had (mistakenly) guessed that those who spent more time outside of work in activities that produced more short-term satisfaction might score higher on overall satisfaction. After all, we assumed, people don't go home to find meaning; they want to relax. We were wrong. The correlations between happiness, meaning, and overall satisfaction at work and home were very similar. Those who were more satisfied with life outside of work were the respondents who reported spending more time on activities that produced both happiness and meaning.

These links between how we spend our time and how we feel may seem confusing, but specific patterns arose—some commonsensical, some not. Here are a few quick takeaways from our initial research:

• Reduce TV watching. It's stimulating but doesn't increase overall satisfaction with life—at work or home.
• Cut back on surfing the Web for non-professional reasons. It's negatively correlated with the experience of both happiness and meaning.
• Do as few chores as you can (whatever that word means to you).
• Spend time exercising and with people you love (respondents who did this had more satisfaction with life at work and at home).
• Feeling challenged is linked to greater satisfaction, so challenge yourself.

What can companies do differently? They might stop asking, "What can the company do to increase employees' experience of happiness and meaning at work?" which encourages dependency. Instead, managers can encourage employees to ask themselves, "What can I do to increase my experience of happiness and meaning at work?" This strategy may produce a higher return in employee commitment—and do so at a lower cost.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

Life is good.

Marshall

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

#MOJOtweet

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com

Marshall's Upcoming Schedule

Years ago, when most organizations were based on the hierarchical business model of the Industrial Age, great leaders were those who were unemotional, rational, even mechanistic. Those days are gone. Today's leader, especially one who is in charge of a dynamic, global organization, finds himself or herself in desperate need of one key trait — self-awareness.

An organization's success today depends on such a variety of talents and skills that no one leader could possibly be gifted in simultaneously. There are technological issues, global issues, financial issues, human resource issues, leadership issues, employee issues, legal issues, and more. A leader who is self-aware enough to know that he or she is not adept at everything is one who has taken the first step toward being a great leader.

This sort of personal mastery entails having a heightened understanding of one's own behavior, motivators, and competencies — and having "emotional intelligence" — to monitor and manage one's emotional responses in a variety of situations. This variety of situations is not limited to the home office, or the boardroom. It is of a global nature, across cultures which are very different and can be difficult to navigate, especially for those who are not comfortable, knowledgeable, or willing to admit their individual strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a shortcoming or two — leaders who are willing to admit these, who strive to improve, and who seek out a consulting team to fill in the gaps will 1) encourage followers to do the same and 2) make room for others whose talents lie where theirs don't.

Have you ever worked with a micro-manager? This is someone who thinks he or she needs to be involved in everything that happens within the company. These leaders are closing out the talents of others by not divesting themselves from the day-to-day problem-solving activities of the company. Great leaders let go of the day-to-day, problem-solving activities of the company. Rather, they choose to maximize strategic and relationship-building efforts. These contribute to the forward momentum of the company rather than causing a "bottleneck" at the leader's desk. No one person should do it all — and if they are self-aware, most people will realize that they really aren't capable nor knowledgeable enough to do it all.

Do you recognize the difference between what you need to do versus what you should pass along to your team? Does your boss?

Following is a short list of things you can do to achieve self-awareness and personal mastery in leadership.

• Monitor your performance. Note areas in which you excel and need improvement. Communicate these to your team.
• Realize that failures and mistakes are just one step on the road to success.
• Recognize that being aware of the impact that your behavior has on other people is a critical leadership skill.
• Remember that when criticism is difficult to accept, there is probably some truth to it.
• And, finally, learn to give yourself and others credit for improving.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's 24 books include What Got You Here Won't Get You There - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. His recent book Succession: Are You Ready?- is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series. Marshall's latest book is Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It!

The pursuit of happiness and meaning is short when we realize that they can be found when we achieve two straightforward goals: loving what we do and showing it. I call this Mojo and all of the successful people I know have it. It is apparent when the positive feelings toward what we are doing come from inside us and are evident for others to see. In other words, there's no gap between the positive way we perceive ourselves -- what we are doing -- and how we are perceived by others.

Four vital ingredients need to be combined in order for you to have great Mojo.

1) Your identity. Who do you think you are?

This question is more subtle than it sounds. It's amazing to me how often I ask people this question and their first response is, "Well, I think I'm perceived as someone who..." I stop them immediately, saying, "I didn't ask you to analyze how you think other people see you. I want to know who you think you are. Taking everyone else in the world out of the equation, including the opinions of your spouse, your family, and your closest friends, how do you perceive yourself?" What follows is often a long period of silence as they struggle to get their self-image into focus. After people think for a while, I can generally extract a straight answer. Without a firm handle on our identity, we may never be able to understand why we gain -- or lose -- our Mojo.

2) Achievement. What have you done lately?

These are the accomplishments that have meaning and impact. If you're a salesperson, this might be landing a big account. If you're a creative type, it could be coming up with a breakthrough idea. But this too is a more subtle question than it sounds -- because we often underrate or overrate our achievements based on how easy or hard they were to pull off.

3) Reputation.  Who do other people think you are?

What do other people think you've done lately? Unlike the questions about identity and achievement, there's no subtlety here. While identity and achievement are definitions that you develop for yourself, your reputation is a scoreboard kept by others. It's your coworkers, customers, friends (and sometimes strangers who've never met you) grabbing the right to grade your performance -- and report their opinions to the rest of the world. Although you can't take total control of your reputation, there's a lot you can do to maintain or improve it, which can in turn have an enormous impact on your Mojo.

4) Acceptance. What can you change, and what is beyond your control?

On the surface, acceptance -- that is, being realistic about what we cannot change in our lives and accommodating ourselves to those facts -- should be the easiest thing to do. It's certainly easier than creating an identity from scratch or rebuilding a reputation. After all, how hard is it to resign yourself to the reality of a situation?

You assess it, take a deep breath (perhaps releasing a tiny sigh of regret), and accept it. And yet acceptance is often one of our greatest challenges. Rather than accept that their manager has authority over their work, some employees constantly fight with their bosses (a strategy that rarely ends well). Rather than deal with the disappointment of getting passed over for a promotion, they'll whine that "it's not fair" to anyone who'll listen (a strategy that rarely enhances their image among their peers). Rather than take a business setback in stride, they'll hunt for scapegoats, laying blame on everyone but themselves (a strategy that rarely teaches them how to avoid future setbacks). When Mojo fades, the initial cause is often failure to accept what is -- and get on with life.

By understanding the impact and interaction of identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance, we can begin to alter our own Mojo -- both at work and at home.

Life is good.

Marshall

My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.

I have reviewed more than 100 custom-designed leadership profiles for major corporations - and have helped write over 50. These documents typically feature motivational language that describes the leadership practices companies desire - such as "communicates a clear vision", "helps people develop to their maximum potential," "strives to see the value of differing opinions," and "avoids playing favorites."

One item I have never read is "effectively fawns over executive management." While almost every company says it wants people to "challenge the system," "be empowered to express your opinion," and "say what you really think," there sure are a lot of people who are stuck on sucking up!

Not only do companies say they abhor such comically servile behavior but so do individual leaders. Almost all of the leaders I have met say that they would never encourage such a thing in their organizations. I have no doubt that they are sincere. Most of us are easily irritated--if not disgusted--by derriere kissers. Which raises a question: If leaders say they discourage sucking up, why does it happen so often? Here's a straightforward answer: Without meaning to, we all tend to create an environment where people learn to reward others with accolades that aren't really warranted. We can see this very clearly in other people. We just can't see it in ourselves.

So now you may be thinking, "This guy Goldsmith is right. It's amazing how leaders send out subtle signals that encourage subordinates to mute their criticisms and exaggerate their praise of the powers that be. And it's surprising how they can't see themselves doing it. Of course, Goldsmith isn't talking about me. I don't do this in my company." And maybe you're right. But how can you be so sure that you're not in denial?

I use an irrefutable test with my clients to show how we unknowingly encourage sucking up. I ask a group of leaders the following question: "How many of you own a dog that you love?" Big smiles cross these executives' faces as they wave their hands in the air. They beam as they tell me the names of their always-faithful mutts. Then we have a contest. I ask them, "At home, who gets most of your unabashed affection?" The multiple choices: one, your husband, wife, or partner; two, your kids; or three, your dog. More than 80% of the time, the clear winner is --- the dog!

I then ask them if they love their dogs more than the members of their families. The answer is always a resounding no. My follow-up: "So why does the dog get most of your unqualified positive recognition?" They reply with answers that all sound about the same. "The dog is always happy to see me." "The dog never talks back." "The dog gives me unconditional love, no matter what I do." In other words, the dog is a suck-up.

I can't say that I am any better. I have two dogs at home. I travel all the time, and the dogs go absolutely nuts when I return from a trip. I pull into the driveway, and my first inclination is to open the front door, go straight to the dogs, and exclaim, "Daddy's home!" Invariably, the dogs jump up and down and wag their little tails. I give them a big hug. One day, my daughter, Kelly, was home from college. She watched my typical love fest with the dogs. She then looked at me disgustedly, held her hands in the air like little paws, and barked, "Woof woof."

Point taken.

If we aren't careful, we can treat people at work like dogs: by rewarding those who heap unthinking, unconditional admiration upon us. What behavior do we get in return? A virulent case of the suck-ups.

Here's how leaders can stop encouraging this behavior. Begin by admitting that we all have a tendency to favor those who favor us, even if we don't mean to. We should then rank our direct reports in three areas.

1. How much do they like me? (I know you aren't sure. What matters is how much you think they like you.)
2. What is their contribution to our company and our customers?
3. How much positive, personal recognition do I give them?

In many cases, if we are honest with ourselves, how much recognition we give someone is more often highly correlated with how much they seem to like us than it is with how well they perform. If that is the case, we may be encouraging the kind of behavior that we despise in others. Without meaning to, we are basking in hollow praise, which makes us hollow leaders.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

Life is good.

Marshall

Check out these leadership skills training DVD video Trainings

Our Remembered Identity exists where our self and past collide. How do you know who you are? Because you remember events in your life that helped form your sense of self. It’s not so important whether these are glorious moments in your autobiography or events you’d rather erase; what’s important is that you can’t forget these touchstones. For better or worse, they’ve left an impact—and when you write a profile of yourself, these moments inevitably get reported.

The good news is that successful people, with robust senses of self-worth, tend to mine their past for the shiny diamonds, not the lumps of coal. They do this, in part, out of self-protection. After all, who in their right mind would gorge on painful or embarrassing episodes from his or her past, let alone allow these episodes to define his or her identity? The trouble is, the further you go back into your past the greater the chances that your Remembered Identity doesn’t match up with who you are today. The world is full of people who aced their teenage years, but is there a sadder commentary about an adult than “he peaked in high school”?

Likewise, the workplace is full of people who made mistakes in their past, but those errors do not necessarily pinpoint with any accuracy who they are now.

I remember asking one of my more self-effacing clients—a man with amazing achievements—to itemize his plusses and minuses as an executive.

“Well, I’m not very good at follow up,” he said.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“My biggest screw-ups in business occurred when I didn’t pay attention to my customers,” he said. "I didn’t check up on them as much as they’d like. I didn’t return phone calls promptly. I didn’t always do what I promised to do, at least not in the timely manner they expected. And sometimes I lost customers because of that.”

I glanced down at the feedback I had gathered about the man from his direct reports and colleagues. He was a capable leader with several thousand employees under his command. He had a few behavioral issues that needed to be dealt with, but “bad at follow up” was not on the list.

“When was the last time a customer gave you negative feedback for poor follow up?” I asked.

“It’s been a while, at least ten years.”

“Then why do you still insist you’re bad at it?” I asked.

He didn’t have an answer.

That’s where Remembered Identity can cheat us in establishing our Mojo. There’s nothing wrong with harkening back to the past to sort out your strengths and weaknesses. But cling too tightly and you might be getting it all wrong, creating a dark blurry picture of someone who doesn’t exist anymore.

Life is good.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's 24 books include What Got You Here Won't Get You There - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. His recent book Succession: Are You Ready?- is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series. Marshall's latest book is Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It!