Midwest ENERGY Association

Becoming a manager or leader means you will have to inspire others, sometimes these people can take the inspiration and run with it, but there are those whom you will need to teach. You've heard the expression "life long learning" before; did you know the unspoken second part is "life long teaching". Great leaders help bring along other leaders, through mentoring, listening, and teaching.

For more information on the Utility Leadership Academy, please contact: Dianne Felty at (651) 289-9600 ext. 131.

NASHUA, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SkillSoft PLC (Nasdaq: SKIL), a leading SaaS provider of on demand e-learning and performance support solutions for global enterprises, government, education and small to medium-sized businesses, today announced the findings of a significant report on employee engagement. Sponsored by SkillSoft and conducted by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks company, the report reveals the need to provide the training and tools at all levels of the organization to create an engagement mindset that drives business results and customer satisfaction.

Beyond Satisfaction: Engaging Employees to Retain Customers, found that one of the key actions that companies can take to drive higher levels of engagement is to improve leadership skills of frontline managers. In fact, over half of Best-In-Class organizations provide training and tools to managers to help them better engage employees, and nearly all of the rest (45%) are planning to extend this type of training in the future.

“This study is important because it highlights the need to develop strong leadership skills at all levels in the organization, not just in the corner office,” said John Ambrose, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development & Emerging Business, SkillSoft. “The challenge comes in finding ways to deliver leadership training that are cost-effective and scalable. That is why so many companies are embracing technology-enabled learning as part of an overall leadership development effort.”

An earlier Aberdeen study (The 2009 HR Executive’s Agenda) found that employee engagement was the top HR strategy being pursued by organizations in 2009. The reason most cited for this focus on engagement is the need to ensure workforce productivity and employee performance during a period of economic uncertainty. But the benefits of engagement go even further, as leading organizations with effective employee engagement strategies are seeing a 22 percent year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction and loyalty, the study notes.

The in-depth study, which includes insights from approximately 450 organizations, finds that employee engagement was most critical to three areas: workforce productivity, employee retention, and the quality of goods/services it produces. The study also showed that when managers and employees agree to performance goals, put in place development plans and provide consistent feedback on their progress, that the organization benefits in many ways, including greater customer satisfaction.

The Ability To Be An Adult
Excerpts from Steve Tobak "Aspiring Managers: Learn to Behave Like an Adult", BNET: The Corner Office, September 11, 2009, <http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=2833>, accessed on September 14, 2009.

It’s relatively easy to be a successful child. All you’ve got to do is learn how to be cute, get attention, and cry when you’re hurt or hungry. Learning how to be a teenager is much harder; I’m not sure anybody’s good at it. I certainly wasn’t. As for becoming an adult, I’ve been working on that for decades and making very, very slow progress.

In fact, becoming a good manager is harder than all of those other phases combined. Why? Because, it not only depends on how much of an adult you’ve become, but how adult your employees are.

Try to act like a mature adult. What does that mean? It means being as honest, comfortable, and empathetic with your own issues and shortcomings as you are with your strengths and skills.

Do the work - hands on. Work your tail off learning the basics of your trade and industry, whatever that is, while you still can - before you get promoted and lose the opportunity.

Become adept at 5 things: finance, selling, presenting, negotiating, and business communications.

Management Tools
Here are some great websites to bookmark if you are looking for management and leadership information regarding multiple topics. All site descriptions are excerpts from that specific site and accessed on September 14, 2009.

iBizRadio http://www.ibizradio.com/
iBizRadio was developed to help business professionals easily locate and download audio/video podcasts that relate to their market of interest or industry.

iBizRadio’s focus is to deliver quality business content through means of voluntary RSS submissions from companies around the world. Podcasting is a powerful communications tool that can be easily shared, downloaded and consumed at the listener’s convenience. By offering a central location of business podcasts on the Web, iBizRadio allows you to stay abreast with the news and perspectives in your industry even when you’re on the run.

BNET http://www.bnet.com/
BNET provides working professionals with the tools, advice, and insight they need to succeed in today's workplace. This isn't a site for those who merely punch the clock: It's for people who are committed to nurturing their own excellence, who believe in the meaning of work, and who know that a fulfilling career is an excellent way to make personal ambitions come true.

Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership http://www.greenleaf.org/
The Greenleaf Center is an international non-profit organization headquartered in Indiana. The Center promotes the understanding and practice of servant leadership. The Center is governed by an international Board of Trustees. The Center holds conferences, publishes books and materials, sponsors speakers and seminars, and provides information and services for its members.

The Center was founded by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1964. In 1970, Greenleaf published an essay, "The Servant as Leader," that coined the phrase "servant-leader" and launched the modern servant leadership movement.

I believe that every human soul is teaching something to someone nearly every minute here in mortality. - M. Russell Ballard