improvement | Thierry Dentice Leadership

Tag: improvement (page 2 of 2)

November 20, 2016

3 Essential Ways to Improve Leadership

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase discussed the most effective ways to become and maintain leadership in his most recent conference appearance in New York City. Below are Dimon’s top ways to achieve a higher level of leadership.

1. Transparency

In order to build and foster a culture of trust between leaders and other employees, Dimon makes a point for leaders to not only share much of the information with others, but to also not engage in hiding bits of valuable information from employees. Interestingly enough, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase that the two way conversation of sharing information is the key when it comes to cultivating this trust relationship.

As a means to include employees who both may feel as though they are in the dark about certain business related initiatives, sharing information such as strategy or the company’s changed financial status is an effective, inclusive way to interact with your employees

2. Deal with problems as they arise

Leaders should also consistently encourage open communication among employees regardless of the situation. Basically, no one should feel uncomfortable to express their thoughts, concerns, or problems at any given time.

Speaking up during a team or company wide meeting sparks internal discussions that can improve a certain situation or prevent a problem. Dimon reaffirms that as a result of leaders fostering a comfortable environment where everyone feels comfortable enough to speak up, this will create a more open dialogue company wide.

3. Understand your business

With the constant changes and mishaps in any business, it can be common for leaders to be out of touch or even disconnected from the needs of their employees. While this is a difficult to achieve, it is important for leaders to connect or touch base with employees of all levels or departments to gain a better understanding of how the organization can improve.

“You don’t sit in your office by yourself and somehow you make big decisions because you read something carefully,” Dimon said. “Talk to your people. … Ask them what you can do better.”

September 15, 2016

How Leaders Should Handle Company Downturn

August 1, 2016

8 Tips to Successfully Lead in Today’s Market

1. Two-way conversations
A great leader always communicates in a way where he/she allows for two way communication with other co-workers or employees. Conveying information in a concise but articulate manner is essential when it comes to highlighting success, receiving feedback, and making strides for improvement.

2. Attitude is everything
Maintaining a positive but realistic attitude both shapes your leadership in a conducive manner while also setting a great example for your team and your company. As you are a solid representation of the organization, making sure your attitude encourages others is essential.

3. Growing talent
Viewing your employees as valuable resources to be nourished and developed instead of business transactions will have two useful outcomes for the company. On one hand, these employees will be grateful that the company is expanding their skill set (webinars, seminars, workshops), and will directly become of more use to the company.

4. Motivate others
Providing a fair amount of emotional support for your team will incentivize performance in order for them to excel in every aspect of their day to day jobs. Some ways to motivate others include encouraging them to challenge their skillsets, acknowledging their successful efforts in a public space, and organizing events for team bonding.

5. Remain impartial
Try to your best to avoid engaging in any favoritism with any co-worker at the office. Remember to evaluate an individual based on his/her performance, how they challenge themselves, and the ways they want to improve the company’s mission. Showing impartial respect to others is the best form of effective leadership.

6. Set the standard
Establishing your legacy at the company is most effective when you lead with actions that support your strengths. Matching or exceeding the work ethic shown by your team members will also create an environment that promotes excellence and dedication to your craft.

7. Decisiveness
In addition to not allowing external factors to affect your decision making, be sure to take the time to support any decision you make with sound logic throughout the thought process. A successful leader can always support any decision with rationale.

8. Educate Yourself
A true leader never stops learning or challenging him/herself to understand the latest market trends or ways to improve the efficiency of a certain internal process. Whether it is reading the journal everyday or attending seminars on a monthly basis, leaders are always looking for ways to improve themselves.

With all this in mind, processing and implementing these tips will also allow you to become the type of leader that people not only admire, but would want to emulate in the future. Leadership is not only about making decisions for the team. It is strongly based on the notion to create an environment of mutual respect to produce a cohesive work environment for everyone.

July 1, 2016

Top 3 Skills of Exceptional Leaders

The book titled “Traction” by Gino Wickman focuses on how to grow your company or “scale up” when the opportunity to expand presents itself. While research has shown that companies struggling to grow or expand find it difficult to break into their growth phase, gathering information from other leaders or entrepreneurs is a key step in order to assess what the appropriate steps are moving forward.

In addition to the insight given by Ken Dunn, here are some tips that any aspiring leader or current manager should actively implement in their day to day tasks. With this in mind, the below are three essential skills that managers, leaders, and other upper management officials need to be aware of as business expansion ensues.

Keep it simple
The best managers and leaders should have the useful skill of framing a very complex issue in simple terms. Though a skill that often times take months or years to develop, the right environment can help any leader acquire this important quality.

As these leaders will be required to guide a team throughout this new process, conveying intricate processes and difficult situations in plain language will not only help everyone comprehend what is going on around them, but will also make the complicated seem easy to understand.

Work with your team
Creating a two way working relationship with each of your teammates allows for both an easy information flow while also funneling growth to empower development. As a manager or leader, it is your job to find strengths in your subordinates in order to decipher how to best expand this skillset to the next step.

Each employee on your team has a different set of strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement, and it is essentially the manager primary goal to improve the subordinate in every way he/she can. As this is a huge part of your role, providing constructive criticism and a strategic approach to rectify this You can learn from everyone you manage.

Structure
The next step from the previous tip, managers also need to set goals for career-related growth as to make sure all their skills are properly utilized. Improving skills are in the best interest of both the employee and the company, and effectively bridging the two is vital for overall growth.

June 26, 2016

4 Practices that Define Inspirational Leadership

Henna Inam, a contributor on Entrepreneur.com, has shed light on interesting research regarding employee psych in the workplace. This research has shown if an employee is focused on his/her valuable purpose, this in turn creates a mental strength allowing us to become both more resilient and courageous when faced with stressful situations.

As a result of Inam’s extensive experience analyzing organizations’ structure, she has also compiled information pointing to what exactly sparks the difference between when coaching goals are met or missed.

1. Inspirational leaders take accountability
The single biggest differentiator in terms of making or hindering progress during the coaching process is how the leader takes or deflects this concept of accountability. Studies show that the most inspirational, successful leaders do not blame others, their colleagues or other circumstances, and instead rely on themselves to make the change they want to see. Thus, these leaders set an example by showing initiative when they see a fault in how to approach a specific obstacle.

2. Inspirational leaders connect with their purpose
Through the coaching process each leader connects with their authenticity. The leaders that practice bringing their unique strengths, purpose, and values into the office on a day to day basis exude admirable behavior. A useful, simple practice for leaders to connect themselves with their purpose is to craft a short list of skills or processes they need to accomplish before the day begins.

3. Inspirational leaders take appropriate action
At the root of it all, inspirational leaders are willing to challenge their habitual ways of behaving, and therefore try out a new approach when once isn’t being effective. In other words, they are willing to experiment and develop new parts of themselves to increase productivity, enhance their skills, and challenge their discomforts. Inspirational leaders ask themselves how to best approach a difficult situation before it occurs.

4. Inspirational leaders look for change
When change happens, transformational leaders practice finding the opportunity in whatever mishap may have occurred at that moment. Focusing on learning from a situation instead of ignoring it entirely will help you improve whatever skill sets you lack. This will allow leaders to focus their energy on enhancing qualities they have not had the chance to improve on in the past.

June 1, 2016

5 Ways to Become a More Communicative Leader

More so than simply just speaking in an effective or polite manner, effective communication is based on qualities related to understanding the other party, active intelligence, and most importantly, emotional intelligence. Similar to what or how you say something can attribute or deter from one’s character, keeping in mind that leadership is indeed a privilege that will allow you to not only lead a team to its full potential, but is also a challenge or a goal that you should try to achieve everyday.

Be Mentally Present
As you go throughout the day from meeting to meeting, connecting with your team even for a few minutes a day can be a difficult task when leaders are emotionally drained. Regardless of how tired or completely worn out you may be, maintaining engagement in either work or personal conversations for a certain amount of time will create a more comfortable social environment for your team.

Questions
Fostering an open, comfortable atmosphere on the team produces efficient, intelligent communication throughout various members on the team. Building a great team with support, proper training, and open-mindedness is one of the fundamental qualities of a great leader, regardless of industry, field or department.

A useful way to guide a conversation centered around an exchange of ideas is to lead a conversation with a specific topic or goal in mind. This way, you can better decipher the strengths and areas of improvement moving forward.

Let others speak
Actively listening complements asking the right questions to initiate a healthy, robust social environment geared towards an exchange of ideas, opinions and strategic approaches to a certain problem. During the conversation, make an effort to not think about what you’re going to say–instead, take the time to let others lead the conversation while you actively listen.

Emotional intelligence
Although this is often deemed as unnecessary or frivolous, learning how to utilize emotional intelligence in your day to day leadership tasks is imperative to long-term success on your team. Exhibiting qualities such as self-awareness, discipline and empathy all collectively shape a leader who is prepared for any positive or unexpected business situations.

Positivity
Remember, you are the face of the team. Even if you are very stressed about a business deal, meeting, or client, be sure to stay calm during anything that may come your way. Along with delivering said words with a relaxed tone, using appropriate language throughout this process will also ease the nerves of your team members.

February 17, 2016

Leading Younger, Junior Employees to Excel

Meeting the demands of growing market can be a bit hard to maneuver, but with the increase of junior staff making their way into the workforce, a set plan to ease a clear onboarding process in place is vital. Contrary to what some hiring professionals may say, enthusiasm, mental freshness and overall eagerness to learn new material all are great qualities that younger professionals contribute to a growing company or brand.

As leaders, it is our responsibility to effectively implement a strategic plan in order to for these young, newer professionals while also promoting a work environment which allows your business to continue growing.

Business experience recommended

Throughout the hiring process, it may be routine to sometimes hire the person with the most enthusiasm or passion, but it is important to reevaluate the young professional’s previous work experience. On paper it may seem like the best option to hire an employee who just graduated university, however once this person is onboarded, be prepared for a learning curve on their behalf. Since these new professionals have little or minimal work experience, mistakes are a common way for these employees to learn. At the same time, this could also interfere with efficiency on both micro and macro levels within the company.

Training

Even if the training process is a work in progress, providing these young professionals with consistent, useful training is the only way for them to receive an encompassing understanding of their role as an entry level employee. Although it does take a fair amount of time for the employee to grow into their role comfortably, steady training with either one or two upper level management is a productive way for them to also understand the inner workings of the company.

No one knows it all

A common mentality for young professionals who have recently entered the workforce is that they are simply unaware of how to execute most of their job. Younger staff may be more likely to affirm everything is going well with self-assurance instead of openly addressing any lingering questions or concerns they may have to avoid showing any signs of “weakness.”

In the leadership position, it is imperative to make it known to your younger employees that your interactions with them are based on two-way communication, where it is essential for them to raise up any issues at hand. As a result, your direct reports will be more inclined to share concerns with you as means to make the fresh, business relationship more stable through a steady workflow between you and your new hire.

January 25, 2016

Success Through Moderate Self-Criticism

While there are opposing views as to whether being actively self-critical can positively or negatively affect the way you can operate or better yourself in the workplace, one chief recruiting officer based out of Chicago thinks of this concept in a different light. While also stating that being overly critical can definitely damper your self-esteem and feelings of self-worth, there is no doubt that Krisi Rossi O’Donnell doesn’t effectively use self-criticism as a means to improve herself in her career. Promoted ten times at LaSalle network in Chicago in the past ten years, there is no question that O’Donnell is aware of how to successfully tap into self-critique as a motivating, useful way to push herself in her career.

The first beneficial part of being self-critical is the process of overthinking every move or decision in order to holistically view a certain situation or address a specific issue. By sometimes over analyzing aspects of your work life, you have the potential of developing the mentality of not only coming up with the best solution through intense examination, but also envisioning what potential outcomes could result in your decision. This art of envisioning for both the short term and long term effects will help you anticipate many outcomes until the result occurs which is very useful for managing expectations.

In terms of self-awareness, O’Donnell highlights some ways in which we are able to embrace this notion without overusing it excess, which in turn can be detrimental. “People who are self-critical are self-aware,” O’Donnell says. “They know exactly where they need to improve, which is crucial to continue growing and developing in your career.” It’s certainly true that the ability to see yourself as others see you is a key skill for effective leaders, and just about everyone else.

Moreover, with all this self-criticism as a primary way to provide you with the mental or emotional resources to strive and therefore better yourself, one of the salient ideas to keep in mind is to always remember there is more room to learn. Growing through the process of never failing to learn in your career is an essential cornerstone in relation to building and moving forward in your respective industry.

Similarly, by embracing failures more than successes in your career is the most beneficial form of capitalizing on how to improve some of your weak points that you weren’t previously aware of. While self-criticism is a great resource for advancement, using it sparingly is a must to achieve a healthy balance or dose of emotional security in your day to day work life.

Newer posts »