Elissa Ellis-Sangster serves as executive director for the Forté Foundation, an organization dedicated to inspiring women business leaders. Ellis-Sangster brings to the role extensive knowledge of issues affecting women’s abilities to seek, prepare for and attain business leadership positions, drawn from her  experience as assistant dean and director of the MBA Program at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. There she oversaw all activities related to the full-time McCombs MBA program including marketing, admissions, student services and alumni relations.

Describe your leadership philosophy.

Build a strong team that complements your skill set and motivate them by giving them ownership of their work. Surround yourself with smart, hardworking people who want to succeed and are passionate about their work.

Tell us about the first time you were somebody’s boss.

When I think about the first time I was someone’s boss, I remember my first boss and all that I learned from her. She was open, responsive, provided me with regular feedback and always made herself available in a genuine way. And she always added in a dose of humor to keep us grounded. I’ve tried to model my approach to management after her. (read more…)

S. Chris Edmonds is a speaker, author and senior consultant with the Ken Blanchard Companies. He co-authored Blanchard’s “Leading at a Higher Level,” Blanchard’s award-winning culture change process, and the soon-to-be-released “#POSITIVITY AT WORK tweet” book. Chris authored the “#CORPORATE CULTURE tweet” book released last year. Read and subscribe to his blog at DrivingResultsThroughCulture.com.

How would you describe your organization/department/team’s culture? Take a moment and select three words or phrases that describe your company culture. Write them down and set them aside; we’ll come back to them in a few paragraphs.

If you’re like most leaders, you don’t pay careful attention to the work environment that exists in your organization today. Most leaders have been groomed to focus primarily on performance metrics, things such as net profit, market share, EBIDA, payroll expenses, etc.

These are certainly important metrics; all organizations need to meet or exceed performance standards. And research indicates that these, alone, are not the strongest drivers of desirable outcomes such as consistent performance, terrific customer service or engaged employees.

What differentiates great organizations from ordinary ones? (read more…)

SmartBrief is partnering with Big Think to create a weekly video spotlight in SmartBrief on Leadership called “VIP Corner: Video Insights Powered by Big Think.” This week, we’re featuring Brian Robertson, a partner at HolacracyOne.

There’s a difference between predicting how you’d ride a bike and actually successfully riding the bike — and that concept should be taken into account when managing a modern-day company, said Brian Robertson, an entrepreneur and partner at HolacracyOne.

In the past, companies traditionally operated on a “predict-and-control” model — that is, planning out how exactly to ride a bike — which may have worked in a flatter business environment. In today’s fast-paced global economy, however, that sort of static thinking may not play out too well. A better approach, Robertson argued, is the “sense-and-respond” method, or to follow the metaphor: Just get on the bike.

“We have to stay present in the moment, eyes open, take in data continually, and steering becomes something we do every moment of the journey, not once upfront. We are present, conscious, aware, and we are in flow responding to reality through our whole system. We make minor course corrections constantly in every muscle in our body,” Robertson said.

To stay dynamic enough to be able to sense and respond to changes, businesses have to trust the humans within — the living, breathing organisms that make the company run like clockwork every day, Robertson noted. Embracing the humanity of your business means creating support systems that enable those within the organization to easily sense reality and react accordingly to create meaningful change.

“We need a new way of controlling and governing the organization, a way that gives us a lot more real control than illusion of control, which is typically what happens when we try a predict-and-control approach,” Robertson said.

Big Think is a forum in which top experts explore big ideas and core skills defining the 21st century. Learn more from its editors, fellows and guest speakers.

• Life’s Messy. Train Your Brain to Adapt.
• Where Are the World’s Jobs? Latin-America.
• Distraction Is a Virtue

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: What’s your opinion of people showing their emotions and crying in the workplace?

• It’s completely acceptable as long as it’s not affecting performance: 17.72%
• It’s OK sometimes but only in extreme circumstances: 61.13%
• It’s not OK and can seem disruptive and unprofessional: 17.97%
• It’s completely wrong — keep your feelings to yourself: 3.19%

Empathy matters. 80% of you understand and accept crying and emotions related to it as a natural part of the human experience.  Furthermore, that realization and your acceptance of it in the workplace (as long as it doesn’t affect performance or disrupt the organization) is laudable.  Too often we seem to try to segregate emotions from business.  That’s impossible to do, given that business is composed of humans who run through thousands of emotions a week.  If you’re not open to understanding and empathizing with the feelings of others, you might want to reconsider your desire to lead people.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”