Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Leadership - Upcoming Seminar/Presentation - Who Me?

Where has the time gone?…just checked my diary [well…electronic version] and realized that the time is fast approaching June 15th for my presentation on ‘Monday Morning Leadership’ [click to download PDF] at Bingemans in Kitchener, ON.  Presently have around 40 people attending, from a good cross section of industries and levels.  Still got approx; 20 places left, if interested let me know at johnrose[at]bell[dot]blackberry[dot]net 

The good news is that some companies who are unable to attend (on the date) have booked ‘On-Site’ presentations…

During my preparation for this subject I have become more aware that the Millennial [Gen Y] group amongst us are far ahead in the use of, and benefits of technology and social media when compared to BB, Gen J [Generation Jones] or Gen X’s, but, due to an ‘entitlement’ attitude, they want to climb the ladder quicker, without all the tools required to handle the role and responsibility of leading and managing people.  Without doubt, they [Gen Y’s] have the hard [technical] tools – but are short in the soft [people] tools.

Is it their fault if they are weak in the soft skills department? NO, they were promoted to a position of leadership because the company/business does not want to lose a great technical person.  It is the companies’ problem when the leader cannot ‘manage’ the team through lack of life/soft/people skills, knowledge, experience, etc…

Take an example from a recent conversation I had with a Senior .NET Developer – he felt that because he had proven his abilities with a company in doing his job, he should get a ‘substantial’ [20%] pay raise!  Knowing the company in question (and the individual), the 3 options open to the company are:  Pay the monies and cause all others in ‘like’ positions to demand the same, or Promote the individual to a management role which achieves the dollar value expected, or thirdly lose a skilled team member to another company willing to pay.  When I pointed out these options to the individual, the answer was obvious – make me a manager then!...Now I adopted my recruiter head and said “What management/leadership qualities do you offer and would bring to your team”?...stunned silence…long pause…then “I have been doing the senior role for 4 years and feel I have earned the position”.   End of argument

Moral of this – person with Ooddles of technical skills and Zero soft skills means promotion on merit and abilities…NO…next person please!

And what you might say has this to do with the presentation, well! the leaders and managers of today are the ones selecting the leaders/managers of the future…it is never to late too learn something that will help ‘lead’ from the front!

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