motivation | Thierry Dentice Leadership

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March 9, 2021

Preventing Burnout and Protecting the Mental Well-Being of Your Employees

Employee burnout is the recent workplace epidemic. It shows up in different correlated signs such as irritation, disrupted sleep, exhaustion, and headaches. These physical, emotional, and mental disruptions are effects of burnout. Having been a burnout victim, Paula Davis has since founded the Stress and Resilience Institute and authoring Beating Burnout at work to give insight on how to avoid the same fate.

Stress at a workplace is subject to discussion, as many believe that it is impossible to have a stress-free- work environment, as is life. However, putting necessary measures in place creates a safe environment for addressing issues before they get out of hand.

Lack of support from leaders, in-effective communication, unreasonable deadlines, unfair treatments, blurred boundaries between home and workplace, unclear job expectations are the major causes of employee burnout in workplaces.

How to Prevent Employee Burnout in Workplaces

We live most of our lives in our heads; making it an inhabitable place is the first significant step to a healthy functioning person. As most of the attributes are mostly intangible, having a degree of emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, curiosity, and courage, are significant prerequisites. Taking the following steps to ensure safe working atmospheres for high productivity;

Encourage Paid Time Off; Employees do not utilize their time off because they know of the many company policies on holiday pay cuts. Reforming such company policies encourage increased productivity, and it’s most likely to motivate them.
Having Wellness Programs and Health Insurances; Perks of being alive is critical for injuries, health disruptions, and even death. Checking on their welfare by emphasizing additional wellness resources, financial wellness resources, fitness programs, etc., fosters an excellent long-term employee-employer relationship.
Having Wellness Programs and Health Insurances; Perks of being alive is critical for injuries, health disruptions, and even death. Checking on their welfare by emphasizing additional wellness resources, financial wellness resources, fitness programs, etc., fosters an excellent long-term employee-employer relationship.
Creating a positive conflict environment: Having hall meetings, period to period surveys about the work setting encourages positive feedback and actionable consequences. Laura Delizonna, a Stanford University instructor, author, and speaker, states that psychological safety is not about being friendly and polite but transparent and authentic. This attribute breeds a constructive ground for the positive feedback.

Employee burnout affects both the employee and the employers alike. Approaching the issues through prevention saves both parties the unlikely aftermath. The meaningful collaboration eventually breeds growth for those involved.

December 11, 2020

Tips for Conducting Effective Interviews

Interviewing is an activity that most businesses devote a lot of time to. It involves exchanging information between two individuals looking to fill a job opening, promotion, special tasks, or other inquiries. It also provides employers with a chance to delve deeper into the skills and qualifications of candidates.

How to Prepare Effectively for Interviews

Every interviewer’s main aim is to find the best-suited person for a particular task or job. It is therefore important to prepare in advance by following the tips below:

Prepare Relevant Questions

The preparation process of an interview takes up the most significant part of the process. Coming up with a list of interview questions takes up time, but it is a necessary step. The questions need to be aligned with the job requirements and the organization involved. Follow-up questions can also provide more details than some of the canned, rehearsed responses.

Prepare for Candidates’ Interview Sections

Interviews should generally be a two-way street. Candidates should be encouraged to ask questions about the company. Excellent candidates will ask intelligent questions about:

Ongoing and future projects
Expectations of the company
Culture of the company

How to Conduct an Interview

Many interviewees go to an interview filled with fear and anxiety. The interviewer is responsible for guiding the conversation and making the candidate feel encouraged. There are various ways to do this:

Support interviewees by nodding while they try to bring out a point or answer a question
Repeating phrases or rewording questions to sound more rhetorical
Using meaningless expressions such as “Umm…” when seeking an emphasis on a point

An interviewer uses his questions as a tool to develop information. The questions should be in a particular order and a broad pattern. It allows candidates to respond with the information they feel essential.

The information gathered from interviews is analyzed from an objective and subjective view. The content presented is confirmed through questions. Interviewers also try to assess the attitude and feelings of candidates.

Conclusion

Many interviews fail due to simple mistakes, such as failing to document what is discussed. Collecting this valuable information can help come up with follow-up questions. It also helps discover mistakes and errors that may have been previously missed.

May 5, 2020

How to Stay Focused While Working From Home

Working from home can seem great at first, but it may get a bit more difficult as time goes on. Staying focused and making sure you have a productive workday from the comfort of your own home is a lot harder than it sounds. Luckily, there are a few things you can do throughout the day to help boost your productivity and keep you focused.

Take a Walk

One of the simplest ways to improve your focus at work is to just take a break and go for a walk. Take a pause from work and leave your desk for a while. After hours of staring at a laptop and sitting in one place, the body can start to wear down and your mind will easily lose focus. To make sure this doesn’t happen, stand up for a bit or take a walk around the block. It’ll improve your work and your day drastically.

Get Moving in Your Seat

When you’re not on a break or walking around, you can easily do some exercises while you are working. Engage in some seated exercises to get your blood flowing and keep your mind focused. Easy ones to try are neck flexion, upper trapezius stretch, strengthening shoulder shrug, chest bicep stretch, and more. If you’re going to spend all day at your desk, doing these exercises can make it easier and more comfortable for you.

Designate a Working Space

Be sure to pick a spot in your home and make it your designated working area. Even if you don’t have a desk, use the kitchen table, a chair in the living room, or even sitting on your bed. Just make sure to set it up in a way to assign it as your work area. And use it for only that If it feels too much like home, it can make staying focused a lot harder. By having a designated area, you are more likely to stay in the workflow and keep up your focus.

Set Up a Schedule

As you work from home, keep a detailed schedule for your day and make sure to follow it. Don’t just wake up, roll out of bed, and get to work two n=minutes after your alarm goes off. Set up your morning routine just as you would if you were heading out to work instead of working from home. Schedule in your breaks and write down goals for the day so you know what needs to be done and how much time you have to do it. This will allow you to have a more productive day.

April 7, 2020

Helpful Podcasts for Small Business Owners

Being a small business owner has its benefits and challenges. As a leader, it’s important to always brush up on your skills and learn new ways to run your business. By being open to new strategies and influences, you can greatly improve how your small business operates and functions. Podcasts have become a great outlet for small business owners. Take a look at the most helpful ones:

Entrepreneur on Fire

This entrepreneurially driven podcast is hosted by John Lee Dumas. Each episode of Entrepreneur on Fire runs about 30 minutes and focuses on subjects such as operating a business and becoming successful. Many of the episodes listeners have the chance to hear Mr. Dumas interview successful small business owners. With everyone from tech start-up founders to solopreneurs, listeners are able to hear about their journey to success.

Online Marketing Made Easy

Marketing is a huge factor when running a small business and an incredibly imperative skill to have. The podcast Online Marketing Made Easy is hosted by Amy Porterfield who discusses the ins and outs of online marketing. The topics of each episode Amy Porterfield give advice for marketing an eCommerce business or blogging for business and brings on guests to joining the discussion to lend their helpful knowledge.

Real Money Talks

A great podcast for empowering entrepreneurs is Real Money Talks. The host Loral Langmeyer uses each informative and entertaining episode to educate and empower entrepreneurs. This podcast’s main focus is to teach how to have important money talks that are straight, to the point. Not only is this great for entrepreneurs, but it can also be applied to everyday life. If your main concern as a small business owner is money, this is the podcast for you.

The EntreLeadership Podcast

As a business owner, it’s always important to brush up on your leadership skills. The EntreLeadership Podcast is the perfect resource for lessons on becoming a stronger and more effective leader. This show is hosted by Ken Coleman who uses each episode as an opportunity to provide listeners with new leadership and business strategies to help a business grow and flourish. This podcast also features celebrity business owners as guests to offer their tried and true business advice.

January 17, 2020

Leadership Strategies to Grow a Small Business

A leader’s work is never done, especially in a small. There are always new and undiscovered ways to improve your team and your business. As a leader, it’s important to always be open to new strategies that can boost productivity. If you stick to the same ways and routine, it can quickly lead to unengaged and unmotivated. Here are the greatest leadership strategies to grow a small business:

Honest Vision and Communications

Honesty is always the best policy, especially when it comes to improving the performance of your team. When you start a business or are helping to lead one, there is always a vision in mind. To be a great leader, you have to express that vision every day through your work and how you communicate with your team. This means always staying on message and communicating with your how their work is a crucial part of this vision. Be honest when they have questions about their work and always stay on message.

Always Be Realistic

Some leaders will make the detrimental mistake of setting very unrealistic goals for their team. They think shooting for such high standards will motivate them to try harder. It can actually have the opposite effect and lead to employee burnout which can have a negative impact on performance and productivity. Instead, keep the goals achievable, but also a bit challenging. When your team knows the goal will take hard work but isn’t impossible to achieve, they will work harder and improve their performance to help grow your small business.

Give Them Space

The last thing your team needs is a micromanager. Instead of delegating every detail down to the very last memo, give them the chance to prove their work on their own. Your team is not incompetent and they know how to do their work. By giving them space to perform their job, you are empowering them to be great. Of course, always be there for help, questions, comments, and concerns, but at a safe distance to help them flourish on their own. In the end, it can lead to better workflow and a stronger business.

December 11, 2019

Why Leaders Can Feel Overwhelmed

Many people think of leaders as invincible, that they know all of the answers, and never become overwhelmed. But when it comes down to it, leaders can become stressed just like any other team member. From feeling incompetent to not having accountability, there are many reasons why a leader may be feeling stressed. Today we will be looking into why leaders can feel overwhelmed in the workplace.

Leaders can be reluctant to ask for help.

As a leader, you are usually the go-to person when it comes to answering questions and most of the time you are expected to know the answer. But sometimes leaders have question and feel hesitant about asking for guidance. Many leaders feel that by asking for help, they will seem incompetent in their role. So instead they internalize their stress as they struggle to come up with the right answer.

Leaders feel like they can’t be authentic.

Many leaders feel like they can’t be themselves while at work. They feel as though they have to “fit a mold” or portray an ideal image. Thinking about your every step and constantly analyzing how you are saying something can be quite draining.

Leaders try to hide their fears.

Leaders have many fears and anxieties. People on the outside looking in, don’t think of leaders are afraid of anything, but they couldn’t be more far from the truth. Leaders are often afraid of change, failure, and upsetting others.

Leaders can feel defeated by challenging personalities.

Not everyone in the workforce is looking out for you. Sometimes leaders have to deal with people who purposely keep them out of the loop. Without the right information, wrong decisions can be made, making you look bad. Someone who is sabotaging your work and blocking you out can easily make you feel overwhelmed.

Leaders can become exhausted.

When you are put in a leadership role, in addition to carrying your own weight, you carry your entire team’s. This can be both physically and mentally exhausting. Exhaustion can claim even the strongest leaders and make them want to quit.

Leaders feel like they can’t count on anyone.

When there is a lack of accountability with your team, a lot of stress can form. If team members are not finishing their work, a leader may feel like it’s up to them to finish everything that needs to be done.

Remember that as a leader, you are never alone. When you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to reach out for help.

November 9, 2019

Earning Respect From Your Team

Earning the respect of others can be a challenging task to conquer. Although it may be difficult, it is not impossible. Earning with respect starts with you. You need to treat others with the same respect you desire, in order to receive that same respect back. When someone enters a role of authority they will often believe they are entitled to respect based on their past experince or current role. This could not be further from the truth.

Rather than being a leader who demands respect, implement these few tips to earn respect from everyone on your team.

Be consistent.

If you say you are going to do one thing, but then do something entirely different, your credibility will dramatically decrease. As long as you follow through on your actions and don’t become a hypocrite, you will find that your team will support you along the way.

Be on time.

Making your team wait on you will drive your respect levels into the ground. Time is valuable, we only have so many hours in a day to accomplish what we need to do. Missing a meeting or showing up 30 minutes late shows that you do not care about the lives of others.

Be there for your team.

In today’s world, there are so many ways to get in touch with someone, from Twitter to Facebook, to Skype, to texting, to Facetiming. With so many channels of communication open, make it clear which one is the best way to get in contact with you. When you have decided which communication method is the best, don’t leave your team hanging. When someone messages you or asks you a question, try responding within 24 hours.

Don’t forget to forgive others and yourself.

Mistakes are completely natural and will happen from time to time. And that’s okay. Be sure to create an environment that encourages your team to experiment and emphasizes that failure isn’t always the worse thing. Be an example of how to bounce back from failure and keep moving forward.

No matter if they are wrong or right, show respect.

When someone’s plan goes wrong, don’t point out their failure. This can be embarrassing and make your colleague feel unworthy. Instead, comfort your colleague and work together to see where things didn’t go as planned. Likewise, don’t be jealous or mean when someone succeeds. Success should be celebrated, don’t make a team member’s hard work seem insignificant.

January 20, 2017

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