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.

When you’re looking to hire, how do you decide if someone is right for your team?

Because Forté Foundation is a virtual organization, communication is a key skill required to be successful. I also look for passion around our mission — passion forgives a lot.

What is the biggest challenge the Forté Foundation is facing in 2012?

• We want to see female enrollment in the top business schools reach 45% to 50% enrollment for women. This won’t happen in 2012, but we want to continue seeing a positive trend.
• It’s possible to get to 50/50, but many obstacles remain, including young women’s understanding of business as a career; lack of access to female business role models and advisers on campus who recommend business school to women; and inadequate planning during undergraduate years, when women need an internship and GMAT results to get into business school.
• Beyond college, 22- to 29-year-old women face several key decision points around starting a family and moving to pursue a full-time MBA. Women are more risk-averse and likely to stay close to home for their education and future employment and are more willing to sacrifice their career prospects for those of their significant other.

What is the biggest challenge women in business are facing?

I think the biggest challenge facing women in business is having the confidence to do it their way and not second-guess themselves. They have amazing skills and abilities that drive strong, balanced decision-making, but in many places “their way” is not being recognized as the “right” way. It’s time for businesses to recognize the unique contributions that women in leadership bring to their organizations and begin rewarding and acknowledging them.

If a recent college grad came to you and said they one day wanted your job, what advice would you give them?

Get an MBA! Become an expert in something. Be curious.

Related Posts:

• Spotlight on Association Leadership: American Cleaning Institute President and CEO Ernie Rosenberg
• Spotlight on Association Leadership: Associated General Contractors of America’s CEO
• Spotlight on Association Leadership: Propane Education & Research Council’s CEO

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?

Leaders in every organization around the globe monitor performance metrics. Yet some organizations are seen as “great places to work” and “great investments” and deliver “great customer experiences.” Most organizations are not seen like that.

Organizational cultures that are consistently high performing AND values-aligned do not happen casually — they happen intentionally. The leaders of these organizations understand that they must effectively manage employees’ heads, hearts and hands — not just one of those three. Leaders that focus on performance alone typically see their role as managing employees’ hands, not employees’ heads and hearts, as well.

These organizations create a workplace culture where employees do the right things — using their heads, hearts AND hands — even when the boss isn’t around.

Blanchard’s experience and research identified the single foundational component of high performing, “great places to work” organizational cultures. That differentiating component: values alignment, driven by senior leaders.

There are three key elements required for a successful culture refinement effort:

• First, senior leaders (of the organization/department/team) must champion the culture change. The responsibility for proactive management of team culture cannot be delegated to any other player or role. Only senior leaders can change expectations, structure, policies and procedures to support the desired culture.
• Second, senior leaders must create measurable, behavioralized values. Defining what a “good citizen” looks, acts and sounds like — down to specific and observable behaviors, describing how leaders and staff treat each other and customers — sets a clear standard for how leaders and staff are to behave day to day.
• Third, senior leaders hold themselves and all staff accountable for both performance standards and values expectations. Once valued behaviors are published, leaders at all levels are “under the microscope.” Employees will be observing leaders’ plans, decisions and actions closely to see if they “walk the values talk.” Only when leaders demonstrate desired valued behaviors will the employee population embrace those behaviors.

The impact of our culture process is best shown by the results reported by our culture clients. They consistently report:

• Increased employee performance.
• Increased employee work passion/engagement.
• Increased customer service experiences.
• Increased profits.

Think back to the three words that describe your organization’s culture that you selected earlier in this post. If you selected words like trusting, employee-focused, safe, inspiring, family or “work hard & play hard,” you’re on the right track. If not, you might consider refining your team’s values expectations and accountability systems.

Related Posts:

• This week’s most clicked
• Jump-starting transformative change as a leader
• This week’s most clicked

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

Related Posts:

• VIP Corner: John Kotter discusses the new wave of change for business
• How workplace culture can help drive employees to succeed
• 5 ways to promote a culture of smart thinking

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.”

Related Posts:

• As a leader, how much of a project’s success or failure can you influence?
• How workplace culture can help drive employees to succeed
• This week’s most clicked

James H. Quigley is former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and a senior partner in its U.S. member firm. He is also co-author of “As One: Individual Action, Collective Power.”

The New York Giants were crowned the Super Bowl champions on Feb. 5, beating out the New England Patriots in a close match-up. But as millions of football fans (including myself) adjust to the end of another epic football season, there’s an opportunity for us to look back at this season’s greatest wins and strongest team chemistry — applying what we learn to business leadership.

Most people immediately point to the quarterback as the most prominent leader on and off the field; a major force in determining wins and losses. After nearly a decade of “quarterbacking” as the chief executive officer of a major firm, I’ve learned that effective teamwork — in football and business — is more about collective behavior than individual star power. You’ve likely heard sports-business analogies before. To fully understand this analogy, we must take a closer look at what separates winning from losing.

Effective leaders and teams have a positive vision

To start, let’s look at the San Francisco 49ers, one of this season’s surprising front-runners with a 13-3 regular season, making it to the NFC Championship game. Quarterback Alex Smith was the No. 1 draft pick in 2005, but during his first few seasons and through a series of coaches, the 49ers were not a playoff-caliber team, much less a Super Bowl contender.

When many were losing faith in Smith’s ability to turn his talent into tangible wins — fans even rallied to have Smith traded — recently-hired coach Jim Harbaugh saw things differently. He had a clear vision for his balanced, team-based approach and gave Smith an unambiguous vote of confidence.

This season, the 49ers moved into first place in the NFC West, due in no small part to Harbaugh’s confidence in his team, and his quarterback in particular. When talks of trades are replaced with votes of confidence, it is amazing how individual action becomes collective power.

Before Smith was drafted by the 49ers, he played college football for the University of Utah — a team led at that time by much-revered head coach Urban Meyer. Like Harbaugh, Meyer also believed in Smith’s abilities; he instilled confidence and Smith delivered. Under Meyer’s leadership, the conditions were in place for the team to achieve success with Smith helping lead Utah to an undefeated season in 2004. Meyer and Harbaugh have both harnessed their positive visions to extraordinary results.

Effective leaders and teams have a balanced approach

On the other side of the coin, let’s look at the Indianapolis Colts. Once revered as an elite NFL team and a Super Bowl contender year after year, the Colts suffered through a painful 2-14 record this season — one of the worst records in the league.

Without a confident quarterback on the field, the Colts lost their winning edge. Traditionally, the Colts’ success traces back to their star quarterback, MVP and Super Bowl winner Peyton Manning. But this year, with Manning on the bench due to an injury, the Colts faced their worst-case scenario. Without being able to focus on their star player, the team had no fallback strategy for success, and lacked the ability to adapt to a different style of play.

To regain their winning status during future seasons, the Colts need to regroup and move together as a team, resisting the urge to rely on one player’s strengths and abilities. By doing so, the team — or any team, for that matter — can unleash its full potential and achieve its ultimate goals.

The most successful leaders today, whether they manage football teams or workforces of thousands, know how to establish the conditions necessary for their teams to succeed, and how to galvanize groups of people — not just one or two key individuals — to achieve shared goals.

By laying a foundation of confidence, creating a strong sense of belonging, obtaining strong commitment to strategic objectives and having a common understanding of how to work together, they are able to harness the collective power of their organizations. That’s a surefire recipe for a winning season.

Image credit: oneclearvision, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• How good of an example of living a balanced life are you for your team?
• 3 key concepts for successful goal setting as a leader
• Why true leadership involves less talking and more listening

Valentine’s Day makes February the uncontested month of love. At ShortStack, we wanted to know how companies show their customers the love, so we conducted a survey asking businesses and brands to rate their own customer service. Turns out, most see their efforts as the kind of stuff George Gershwin was writing about when he penned “S’Wonderful.” A whopping 76.9% of the 1,403 companies polled said they give at least “great” customer service, while 30% rate their service as “stellar.”

Most companies reported using multiple means to deliver their support, with social media taking the top, most-used spot at 79.7%. E-mail (78.3%), phone (63.3%), in-person (51%) and website submission forms (49.1%) rounded out the top-five means of customer service.

Interestingly, when asked which method was most effective, in-person was the runaway winner, despite being the fourth most-used. It seems that even in today’s world of impersonal, electronic communication, there’s no substitute for a warm smile and a handshake.

“In a day and age where, ‘Your call is important to us, please wait,’ has become the norm, making a personal connection and being responsive to customer needs seems the obvious answer for success,” said Severn C. from Camp Run-A-Mutt.

While businesses can make every concerted effort possible to ensure their customers receive sterling support, you can’t always keep everyone happy. So what happens when the customers start singing a less-than-loving tune? More than 98% of those polled manage a Facebook page for their business. When fans voice their dissatisfaction on the company’s Facebook wall, what’s the response like?

Missy S., of Southern Belle Store, was in the 65.6% majority who said responding to and addressing a wall post publicly is the best way to approach disgruntled fans.

“The complaints are rare but when we do get one on our wall, it stays there. Removing it only implies that we have something to hide. Customers like to see things handled openly. We reply offering assistance with the issue and follow through until it has been resolved. The entire exchange is public and available for everyone to see. I believe that this approach says much more about a company than a complaint ever will,” she said.

Others chose to deal with disgruntled fans differently. An initial public response followed by private correspondence was the second most-common method at 31.2%; 17.5% did nothing and let their fans respond for them; and 11.6% ignored the dissatisfied customer’s complaint completely.

The high social media numbers (98% of those polled have a Facebook business page and 79.7% provide customer service via social media) reflect a trend of customers turning to social media for support.

This is especially true of the Facebook wall. The wall is conspicuous, available and easy. More and more customers are using the wall to air their complaints, grievances and frustrations.

Is your company ready to show your customers the love, even on the Facebook wall?

Related Posts:

• You should know who’s talking behind your brand’s back
• Q-and-A: Cindy Solomon on success, social media and being a woman in the workplace
• Payments: The new paper vs. plastic debate

It’s all in this week’s top five most-clicked links in SmartBrief on Leadership:

• How a former pinup girl outsells Martha Stewart
• Being bad at managing doesn’t mean you can’t lead
• Shouldn’t you be in a meeting?
• Is your cat harboring an evil puppet master?
• How to build a smarter organization

Image credit: narvikk, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• How workplace culture can help drive employees to succeed
• This week’s most clicked
• This week’s most clicked

Reputation is essential to getting things done. Because leaders accomplish little by themselves, they need to bring together others for common purpose. How others perceive a leader is important to encouraging a following.

In this video, I offer ideas on how to develop your leadership brand in ways that resonate with your authority and authenticity.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related Posts:

• VIP Corner: Where Mitt Romney draws his leadership inspiration
• VIP Corner: Guy Kawasaki, on why you shouldn’t pat yourself on the back just yet
• How to lead your peers

Many years ago, a customer wrote a letter about me to my regional manager. To this day, I don’t know what prompted him to write the letter, and I don’t remember everything that it said, but I do remember that he called me “a diamond in the rough.”

While he saw potential, my focus was on all of my rough edges. I had recently transitioned from nonprofits and small businesses to my first job in corporate America. The processes, the language, the attire, the politics and the overall environment were so different so that, as thrilled as I was to be there, I was also intimidated and afraid that my knowledge and ideas were too simple and too child-like to be worthy.

What is interesting to me today is that the customer who wrote the note was an incredibly successful and busy CEO. In spite of his schedule, he intentionally chose to invest his time in both me and in the organization I worked for by writing that note.

The reason I share this story is that since then, I’ve frequently asked executives and hiring managers what their biggest challenge is. At least 90% of the time I get the same answer: “People.” That comment is quickly followed by an explanation about how hard it is to find enough qualified and caring people to do the work.

So here’s the challenge, if polished gems don’t grow on trees: How and where do you find them? Taking a lesson from Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman’s Strengths Finder Research, and the CEO I mentioned earlier, you invest your time and mine for them.

Consider these true stories.

A vibrant, outgoing skilled woman has a position doing routine clerical work. Her people skills are not challenged; her ability to problem solve is not challenged, and her desire to have fun at work is not understood. She is undervalued and treated like an ugly duckling. When she is transferred to another department where her natural strengths are unleashed, she increases customer satisfaction and key metrics by several percentage points. She is suddenly a swan!

A woman works for a large organization in a department where she is considered to be the top performer. Her manager consistently praises her performance, her attitude and her work ethic. When she is asked to transfer to another department, her new manager has nothing good to say about her. When she is transferred a third time, she is once again recognized as a top performer.

A 30-year-old bartender applies for an entry-level corporate position. He is extremely late for the interview and visibly shaken. Upon meeting the candidate, it is clear that he has a passion for people and for service; he is a deep thinker, with a sense of humor; he’s technologically savvy and looking to make a long-term career move. Prior to the interview, he encountered several uncontrollable circumstances that made it impossible for him to arrive on time or to communicate what was transpiring. The ultimate decision to hire him proves to be one of the best hiring decisions the manager ever makes. He becomes a highly valued, long-term employee that increases teamwork, customer satisfaction and revenue for the organization.

A woman enters a convenience store and engages in a conversation with a homeless man. Eventually the man reveals that they were former classmates. As they continue their conversation, she learns that he is highly educated, had a great career, a home and a family — before he started using drugs and lost it all. She sees a diamond where others only see rough. She offers him compassion and accountability, and he is transforming.

A man is raised without wealth, formal education or polish and continuously suffered painful losses, failures and depression. And yet, in spite of all that “rough,” Abraham Lincoln emerges as the greatest leader our country has ever known.

Think about those you work with every day. Are they diamonds in the rough that are simply being ignored or overlooked?

Think about the applicants you are interviewing for your open position. Do they have the passion and talent and just need to learn your industry?

What if a diamond in the rough could bring your organization a fresh perspective and ideas that increased customer satisfaction, teamwork, efficiency, employee retention or profitability?

The diamonds are there, just waiting to be discovered:

• Employees who already work for your organization.
• Heroes who are transitioning out of the military and into the civilian workplace.
• People who realize they are in dead-end jobs.
• People who have been laid off.
• People who are disabled.
• People coming out of recovery programs and are in need of a second chance.

Are you ready for a treasure hunt?

Image credit: frender, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• Is stress ruining your leadership-development efforts?
• How candid are you with job applicants when they don’t get the job?
• How thinking like a child can help any leader achieve more goals

Shannon Alter is president of Alter Consulting Group. She helps managers and companies succeed by developing the skills they need to provide client solutions. Her book “Say it With Success: Foolproof

You’re on the way to pitch your services to a promising prospective client. As you step out of the car, you feel a trickle of sweat making its way down your spine. In fact, you’re just a little bit dizzy. Nervously adjusting your new suit, you grasp the problem: You hate making presentations. For many professionals, the mere thought of pitching new business can be nerve-wracking. It’s no surprise: Studies show that 75% of Americans fear public speaking over just about anything else, including death and snakes.

Which public speakers do you admire most? Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and even Lady Gaga are often at the top of the list. No matter who your favorite is, good speakers have several traits in common: confidence, charisma, calmness and poise. Here are three surefire strategies you can use now to boost your confidence and power up your next pitch.

1. Have a conversation: A client recently asked me to evaluate one of its team members, a long-time industry executive. The executive was very knowledgeable, however, his customers complained that they didn’t have a good sense of how their project was coming along. As a result, he didn’t appear credible. Both his reputation, and the company’s, suffered. What was the problem? He had lots — and lots — of information, so that wasn’t it. Plain and simple: The executive wasn’t connecting with his audience.

Think of it as having a conversation. When you’re wooing new business, effectively getting your message across is crucial. Help your new clients connect the dots by offering pertinent examples of how your company has handled a situation. Be sure to share how you recovered from a problem; it will illustrate your strategic skills.

2. Narrow your focus: Often I work with companies that want to expand their business by acquiring clients in another sector of their industry. Just as often, they want to do everything. The same holds true in presentations: We want to include every possible bit of information. Here’s the secret: Get to the point and stay there. Hone in on what your audience wants to know, and they won’t zone out. It’s impossible to be everything to everyone, so pinpoint your focus and clients will know they are truly hiring an expert.

3. Polish it up! I have six words for you here: edit, edit, edit and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. If you want your presentation to be pitch-perfect, this step is critical. Bring out your inner editor and revise until your presentation is right on message. Thoroughly rehearse your presentation, even the spontaneous parts. Many times people will review their proposal simply by reading it or going over it in their heads. If you want surefire results, rehearse your pitch out loud — in front of the mirror, your colleague or even your mom.

Your job is to give prospective clients a great reason to work with you. Take the time now to refine and retool your presentations to make sure they are client-worthy. It will make a world of difference.

Image credit: Yuri_Arcurs, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• Your leadership trump cards
• This week’s most clicked
• This week’s most clicked