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The characteristics that make us human, are also what separate the true leaders from the wannabes. We are constantly putting business leaders on a pedestal, celebrating their stellar successes, but for me, the real lessons lay in understanding the failures of business cultures and leadership patterns. To be successful we have to first learn to guard against destructive behaviours — everyone will be confronted with them (indeed, perhaps exhibit them) at some point in their career. Let me highlight six of the biggest mistakes for anyone in a leadership role. These characteristics are what make us human, but they are also what separate the true leaders from the wannabes. Fear of change People used to have fun browsing the shelves at Blockbuster to see which movies were still available for rent that night. (“Am I in the mood for a horror movie or a comedy?”) They had the strongest entertainment brand, but they went under because of a stubborn refusal to follow the customer online. With their decades long knowledge of industry trends, surely they could have potentially been a player in the online market. Instead they chose to stick with what worked earlier until they unravelled. Today’s economy — global, domestic, local — is fast and dynamic; it’s in a constant state of change. And so, the greatest overarching challenge facing leaders and their organizations today is to be able to quickly identify and respond to market change. and Lack of transparency Former Volkswagen CEO is reported to have encouraged his staff to ignore their moral compasses for years before the emissions scandal came to light. Cooking the numbers was accepted as long as it helped the company to meet their profit goals. When you work for a leader who is happy to foster an opaque environment, it is hard to really get a grasp on the true situation. If a leader has a reputation of less than transparent dealings, there is a risk that this can spread downwards to their employees. Martin Winterkorn Effective leaders are always testing to make sure their companies’ strategies are still effective — and say so when they aren’t. The truth sometimes hurts, but it’s often the shock of that truth that prods people into taking actions and making decisions they might not have contemplated otherwise. Working all the time Often my fellow CEOs and entrepreneurs say they work all time — 24/7, it’s only way they can keep up, manifest their passion, and keep their team motivated. This is something I used to do and can relate to. Over the years, I painfully learned that faster and longer does not mean better. It has more propensity to create faulty outputs, team burnout, and eventually a fearful and toxic culture. Unless you work for emergency services, no one needs to get emails in the middle of the night. Effective leaders deliberately slow down and unplug everyday — and encourage those around them to do the same. When we slow down, we notice both the details and their potential repercussions. We ask more and better questions and come to more and better conclusions. The less important things fall by the wayside as we focus more slowly, yet effectively, on the matters having the greatest impact. Closed-mindedness There’s a word for not knowing: Ignorance. It’s true that the term carries a negative connotation; if someone calls us ignorant, we leap to defend our egos. Ego is important for a confident leader, but too much Ego can also be detrimental for a leader as it makes them closed-minded. Sometimes ignorance is an important prerequisite for accomplishing big things. We can be skillfully ignorant by acknowledging that it’s a complex, maybe even opaque world we’re setting foot in. That simple recognition can help us get our bearings, providing a framework for expanding our knowledge base before striding forward. Other times, of course, ignorance is just ignorance — causing us to stride blindly forward. A beginner’s mind, then, can be an asset. But only if you take the right approach — avoiding negative patterns — for making a new beginning. Abusive behavior You always hear stories about the controlling and Machiavellian antics of power-hungry bosses, but there are few recent corporate examples that are worse than the co-founder of investment firm Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), . Pimco executives accused him of “breaking commitments to abide by management decisions, trying to sabotage the careers of the former CEO and others he suspected of disloyalty, and treating his colleagues abusively.” Almost sounds like something out of the TV series. Bill Gross Game of Thrones It is important for a leader to guard against the toxic emotions that others may bring into your orbit. That takes intentional and constant effort. The people we surround ourselves with can make the difference between failure and success just as much as our own emotional self-control can. Emotional self-control also allows for empathy for others. And without empathy, a leader fails to listen, motivate, and direct. Inability to deal with failure Success often results after several misfires. We make many mistakes along our personal and professional journeys. If we learn from our mistakes, life does make allowances. However, if we wallow in our mistakes, they can consume us. Successful leaders learn to bounce back from failure repeatedly. Milton Hershey was a ‘nobody’ who, according to , became the American manufacturer and philanthropist who founded the Hershey Chocolate Company, popularizing chocolate candy throughout much of the world. He started three separate candy ventures before he found success. None of them worked out the way he’d hoped, but eventually he started the Hershey Chocolate Company, which made him an industry leader. Biography The biggest threat of any mistake is not the immediate ramifications, but the longer-term effects on our behavior. If we take a mistake to heart (especially when we could not have done anything to influence the outcome), being able to take the next step seems that much harder. Why dwell on failure when it is in the past? If a leader does not take a positive next step, they risk being caught in an emotional loop of failure. Start the next project to occupy your mind. Don’t just sit in your room waiting for the world to swallow you up. Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson from . Hershey’s story Original Article @BusinessInsider . Copyright © 2017 by Faisal Hoque. All rights reserved. I am an . Founder of and other companies. Shadoka enables aspirations to lead, innovate, and transform. Shadoka’s accelerators and solutions bring together the management frameworks, digital platforms, and thought leadership to enable innovation, transformation, entrepreneurship, growth and social impact. entrepreneur and author SHADOKA Author of “ ” (McGraw Hill) and “ ” (Motivational Press). Follow me on Twitter . Everything Connects — How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability Survive to Thrive: 27 Practices of Resilient Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Leaders Faisal Hoque Use the Everything Connects leadership app and Suvvive to Thrive resiliancy app for free.

Why So Many Leaders Fail

[Photo:flickr user ljnixon ] “Crisis management” isn’t a monolithic process or a skill that suits every situation. Sooner or later, no matter their size, location, or industry, all companies face some sort of crisis. The trouble, though, is that we often talk about “crisis management” like it’s a single skill or process: You have it or you don’t; you do it right or you totally mess it up. But that isn’t the case at all, and the effects of this misunderstanding aren’t hard to see. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Emory University and found (unsurprisingly) that mismanaged crises often resulted from unprepared leadership teams and led to a wide range of long-term consequences, whereas companies that handled crisis effectively managed to recover fully and quickly. reviewed the data Here’s a basic yet underappreciated taxonomy of business crises and a look at what it takes to weather them. THREE TYPES OF CRISIS This is when there’s serious individual misconduct and unethical or illegal activities by key players. The right now, centered around founder and CEO Roger Ailes, is a flagrant example of this type of crisis. It not only reflects Ailes’s alleged personal conduct but the culture of the organization he led. 1. Personnel crisis. sexual harassment scandal that’s rocking Fox News Even if some decisions involve the most basic of gut instincts, leaders navigating crises need to tell their teams precisely what they want, when, and why. Former Volkswagen CEO is under investigation for alleged market manipulation related to his involvement in the company’s emissions scandal, which began to unfold in 2014, alongside other VW board members. The company has already admitted to secretly installing software in some 11 million vehicles in order to pass emissions tests, a violation that investigators now appear to suspect may have been mismanaged (or even started) among top leaders. Martin Winterkorn Chipotle is still fighting its way back from a string of customer food poisoning incidents in late 2015. The company is but still struggling to right itself. Chipotle’s failures were a matter of systemic operational crises up and down the organization — from its supply chain and quality control to customer interactions. 2. Systemic crises. finally back to in the black Brexit, mass shootings, terrorism: From local incidents all the way on up through geopolitical upheavals, businesses can wake up one morning and suddenly have to navigate a variety of crises they couldn’t have seen coming. This type of crisis originates externally but dramatically changes the context in which a company operates. It creates psychological turmoil and unsteadies employees and customers alike. 3. Contextual crises. Professor of MIT’s Sloan School of Management : Peter Senge once wrote Leadership exists when people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances . . . Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities. That’s a high bar to clear — especially during a crisis. But if leaders grasp that their job is already about creating new circumstances, then sudden changes of fortune (even for the worse) may not actually seem so anomalous or frightening after all. You can’t set an action plan for every possible contingency, but you don’t have to. Here are two steps for navigating a crisis whose specifics you can never anticipate. 1. START WITH YOURSELF, THEN WORK OUTWARD Managing crisis means accepting incredible levels of uncertainty with a calm, cool, and positive attitude. That’s never easy. But the sense of urgency to tackle tough situations always requires an even temper. In order to communicate a decisive yet flexible plan as soon as crisis hits, you’ll need to assess the situation effectively: 1. Ask yourself: What does this situation demand? Is it a personnel crisis, a systemic crisis, or a contextual one? 2. Then craft an immediate-term response strategy based on how you want to emerge from this crisis at the end — even if you don’t know exactly how you’ll get there — and communicate it to your team, partners, and customers. 3. Finally, as you begin rolling out that strategy, keep an eye on ability (your own and your organization’s) to execute it based on how the crisis evolves (and it will!) — without losing sight of your company’s assets, structure, and capabilities. Sound like a lot to handle? To be fair, it is. In 2014, Mary Barra became General Motors’s (GM) first female CEO. After only two months in the role, GM had to recall 1.7 million cars with an ignition switch defect that was responsible for more than a dozen deaths — a clear-cut systemic crisis, with possible reverberations at the personnel level. Barra snapped into action. She personally went on a media tour and apologized for GM’s grave mistake. As the reported, “It was a moment unlike any other at General Motors: The top executive stepping — personally and publicly — into the middle of one of the gravest safety problems in the company’s history. Her performance was a marked departure from the norm in the auto industry, where corporate chiefs routinely avoid talking about recalls unless subpoenaed by Congress.” New York Times After assessing the situation, Barra took personal responsibility for dealing with GM’s crisis head on, preventing a systemic crisis from spiraling into an irrecoverable and a failure of leadership to boot. PR disaster 2. INFLUENCE OTHERS, THEN LET THEM INFLUENCE YOU Successful leaders inspire and influence everyone in good times and bad — their executive team, employees, customers, clients, partners, investors, and many others. That’s also part of the job description. Even if some decisions involve the most basic of , leaders navigating crises need to tell their teams precisely what they want, when, and why — then help them make it happen. Waiting too long to weigh countervailing opinions can spell doom. gut instincts Here’s what , chairman of Nationwide Building Society, said immediately after the Brexit vote: David Roberts Britain has always been at its best at times of high uncertainty and volatility. There are important decisions coming, but for the next few days, weeks, and months, we all have a responsibility to work through the issues in a calm, thoughtful, and positive manner. Despite the naysayers, the economy will continue to function effectively; customers will still need to save, borrow, and invest, and we will all continue to be there for them as we were yesterday and in the weeks past. Roberts didn’t resort to abstraction even while working to calm fears; he concisely describes what the U.K. economy’s goals must be and which consumers’ needs remain unchanged. It’s inspiring talk amid a contextual crisis, but it’s also marching orders of a sort — here’s what we all need to do next — reflecting Senge’s goal of helping people “become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world.” Communicating effectively in times of uncertainty means not just articulating your point of view, but listening actively — without bias or judgment and with a real willingness to consider different perspectives. Roberts acknowledges this, too, when he notes a shared responsibility for navigating the issues collaboratively. That means paying heed not just to the content of others’ ideas, but to their emotional tone, too. Both are crucial for mutual understanding — and, ultimately, everyone getting back on their feet. [Photo:flickr user ljnixon ] Original Article @ Fast Company . Copyright © 2016 by Faisal Hoque. All rights reserved. I am an . Founder of and other companies. Shadoka enables entrepreneurship, growth, and social impact. Author of “ ” (McGraw Hill, 2014) and “ ” (Motivational Press, 2015). Follow me on Twitter . entrepreneur and author SHADOKA Everything Connects — How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability Survive to Thrive: 27 Practices of Resilient Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Leaders @faisal_hoque

Conquering The 3 Most Common Types Of Company Crisis

Aligning code, in general, does not provide any value. It's just to make code look more beautiful and easier to read. Meet . Vim Easy Align It's similar to if you've used vscode. better align Installation & Configuration You can install using your favorite plugin manager. Using vim-plug And add the following mappings to your file Plug 'junegunn/vim-easy-align' .vimrc xmap ga <Plug> (EasyAlign) nmap ga <Plug> (EasyAlign) Feel free to change the default mapping to something you're more comfortable with. Note: If you're not familiar with and , they're used to add mappings for normal and visual mode respectively. ga nmap xmap Usage There are multiple ways to use the plugin. I found the following to be the easiest. 1. Align code in the current block While in normal mode type gaip= Explanation: Start the EasyAlign command ( ) for nner aragraph and align around the sign. ga i p = Note: don't forget to press enter to execute the command. 2. Align currently selected code Assuming that you have something selected while in visual mode. Type ga= Explanation: Start the EasyAlign command ( ) and align around the sign. ga = Options 1. Regular expressions You can use regular expressions to align anything you want. The only limit is your imagination. Let's say for example you want to align javascript module imports around the keyword. from You would use the command ga<Ctrl-x>from And once again is used to enter the EasyAlign mode. ga After that, press (Control + x) to enter the mode. Ctrl-x regular expression Lastly you can enter whatever you want to align your code around (in this case it's ) from 2. Align modes Normally each character has it's own align mode (left or right). So, for example, (equal) signs are normally aligned to the right while (colons) are aligned to the left. = : But we can change that by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Note: I'll be referring to the right & left arrow keys in commands as and respectively. -> <- Example: Align right ga->: Align left (we don't have to use since it's the default for colons) ga: <- 3. Live Interactive Mode Live interactive mode allows you to see your changes as you type the command. To use the live interactive mode you can use the command . :LiveEasyAlign Or you could add the following to your if you prefer shortcuts. .vimrc " Change <iga> to whatever you like nmap iga <Plug>(LiveEasyAlign) xmap iga <Plug>(LiveEasyAlign) Conclusion Obviously the plugin contains more options than I could explain in 20 pages. This article is supposed to be beginner friendly and introduce the basic options. References Vim Easy Align https://github.com/junegunn/vim-easy-align Vim Plug https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug

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