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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.

April 28, 2016

How Leaders Should Handle Company Downturn

Effectively dealing with challenges or struggles when a business is undergoing a massive economic or structural downturn is a incredibly difficult task for leaders regardless of industry. To create and maintain long-term success, be sure to follow these steps to stabilize workflow internally, while also producing an atmosphere that is conducive to further business engagements.

Along with utilizing emotional intelligence throughout these various processes, using a concept titled “strategic empathy,” allows leaders to project an interesting balance of both the individual employee and the overarching business goals. Emotional intelligence is also a key component to remember as you maintain business relationships with employees, upper management officials and employees who report directly to you.

Appreciate honesty
Even if sometimes honesty in the workplace can be frowned upon, as your company undergoes this transition, be sure to value and highlight the importance of truthful advice, thoughts, or ideas during meetings. Although you must listen at every level, the best leaders look carefully for that middle ground or middle manager that deconstruct whatever is going on internally is a great way to move forward and grow to better times.

Anxiety
In addition to leaders being anxious about the company’s future, keep in mind that employees of all levels are aware of the business’ current state. While there is a huge possibility you may be experiencing a huge amount of anxiety, take a deep breath and be the role model for your team. This in turn will quell any nervousness, anxiety or doubts your employees may be experiencing.

Fix whatever is broken
One mistake that many leaders fail to address properly is fix or deal with the issue before it spirals out of control. Utilizing decisiveness as a salient tool is the best way to align your verbal confirmations with intelligent, well-thought out action.

Outside perspectives
Receiving advice from other coworkers, employees or leaders internally can be quite useful, but this information can be somewhat partial. Keeping an eye out for objective perspectives that can offer unbiased insight in this business situation can create a level of awareness to issues you may be overlooking. Peers, friends from other companies who have undergone a similar experience, and leaders in different industries can offer sound insight that has the potential of guiding your company through this difficult time.

Collective effort
Another important step to take while your business is struggling is to create at atmosphere built around working towards a common goal. Establishing a common, single-focused mindset can not only appease everyone’s conscious a bit, but also augment positivity across the board. Challenges like these will test your strength, perseverance and dedication as a leader in your respective field.

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.

February 10, 2016

Utilizing Open-mindedness in Leadership

Intelligence is without a doubt one of the most fundamental properties that help others strive to be better while simultaneously improving the company’s overall mission through knowledge. Unfortunately, it has been a common trend for highly intelligent CEO’s to make a set of mistakes that ultimately have led to the downfall of their companies. To illustrate this point, some of the most global, well known digital tech companies have declined in both popularity and their profit margins by simply neglecting to maintain a certain type of open-mindedness that is essential for business plans.

Based on a study by Professor Finkelstein at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, the below key points are some accurate ways to ensure that your business flourishes from an open-minded perspective that could allow for an overall clearer vision. The following points touch upon how to rectify any intentional or unintentional habits leaders in upper management may be acting on, which can be detrimental to your establishment.

Room for improvement

While taking pride in your work is salient in terms of progress, be mindful that this is one quality that has the potential of spiraling out of control fairly easily. Leaders that develop a strong obsession or become particularly entranced with specific concepts that they have created, statistically show a high level of contentment, therefore not allowing them to question their current state. With this in mind, leaders often firmly believed that the success created will never decline.

Dont dwell on the past

One common trend among company leaders is that when the financial or creative situation of their brand was not performing too well, it resulted in these CEO’s or other members of higher up management to recreate old plan of actions or strategies. Although many of these strategies were not necessarily pertinent or beneficial to the business endeavors at the time, leaders were convinced they would result in success simply because it was effective in the company’s recent history.

Company first

Sometimes if the founder of a company or a CEO becomes too attached to the establishment, this tends to be counterproductive, with these leaders tending to focus in on securing the brand’s image instead of emphasizing transparency. Thus, it is actually fairly common for upper management to get caught up in their work that they often forget to envision plans in accordance with the company’s goals or missions.

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.

January 4, 2016

How To Effectively Motivate Employees

In spite of the fact that leaders maintain various practices to effectively demonstrate or inspire leadership in others, there are some basic rules as to how leaders can successfully cultivate and further increase productivity in their employees. While leaders come in all management styles and personalities, following these simple guidelines is key to sustaining workflow by focusing on the needs of the team or specific employee instead of letting bias or partiality interfere with what’s at hand.

Leave Your Emotions At The Door

Easily one of the most unprofessional tendencies of poor leaders is to act on impulse instead of actually understanding the goal or overall point of the task. Letting your emotions dictate the way you lead your team or conduct business in the workplace is not only unprofessional, but also is very counterproductive. As a leader, it is your responsibility to rectify whatever situation occurred and continue to implement best methods and practices to ensure fluid workflow among the team. By getting angry and yelling, it makes your employees feel uncomfortable and unapproachable which isn’t good for anyone.

Use Honey Instead of Vinegar

Kindness is a super important, useful tool that allows both the employer to reach to level of a well-functioning leader and the employee to feel appreciated in the work they are fulfilling. According to a U.K. study, companionship and recognition are more important than even high salaries in promoting employee loyalty, which in turn, can be seen in increased productivity across the board. Although expressions of anger may have a few benefits, holistically speaking, studies have found that negative emotions generally cause managers to be seen as less effective, while maintaining a level of unapproachability and emotional distress for their subordinates. Little things such as simply asking how someone is doing personally and attempting to listen to what the person is saying actually affects people a lot more than you would think.

Take Responsibility

This tool is a little difficult for many leaders or managers, as subordinate employees are easy to blame because of their lack of positional power. While this something that happens across companies around the world, it is important to note that as a team leader, whatever goes wrong is technically on your shoulders. Granted that when your team excels, you often receive the credit, there should be no question that the leader of the team assumes all responsibility for the work done well, poorly or not at all.

Perks

Asking what the perks are of a company can sometimes show how much they care or are willing to retain the talent that allows them to produce a great deal of revenue. According to Sabine Sonnentag from the University of Konstanz in Germany, exercise, yoga, breaks from work,and more strict boundaries between work and home can reduce job stress and increase employee well-being and engagement. By providing simple perks such as yoga in the office, discounted gym passes or fresh produce in the kitchen, it motivates employees’ physical/mental state, while highlighting the fact that the company cares about their health. Learn more on how to improve leadership from HBR and Forbes.

November 25, 2015

Emotional Intelligence Now Considered Key Leadership Skill

Emotional intelligence is a pretty recent concept. It was coined in 1990 in a research paper by John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale. It was later defined by Mayer in the Harvard Business Review thusly:

“From a scientific (rather than a popular) standpoint, emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others’ emotions. It doesn’t necessarily include the qualities (like optimism, initiative, and self-confidence) that some popular definitions ascribe to it.”

Almost a decade later, Rutgers psychologist Daniel Goleman established the important connection between emotional intelligence and business leadership. In HBR’s 1998 article, “What Makes a Leader,” he states that the most effective leaders all have a high degree of emotional intelligence. IQ and technical skills are irrelevant when it comes to reaching an executive position.

Emotional intelligence has five major components:

Self-awareness
Self-regulation
Motivation
Empathy for others
Social skills

Each of these components allow people to recognize, learn from, and connect with other people’s mental states.

According to HBR, understanding what constitutes emotional intelligence is important not only because it is so central to leadership, but because people who are strong in some components of it may be lacking in others. One example used by Salovey during a 2010 leadership conference was Bill Clinton, who was remarkable in his empathy yet devoid of self-control.

Mayer and Salovey coined the term “emotional intelligence” the same year that the functional magnetic resonance imaging machine was invented. For the first time, people could look at what was happening in the brain while it was functioning. Golemans extensive work on the subject of emotional intelligence is infused with findings from these studies. With that research Goleman and others have been able to further establish the connection between emotional intelligence and leadership.

They’ve been able to understand what physically happens to the brain when you understand what another person is saying, for example. They’ve also found definitively that emotions like anger can lead to bad decision making and that sometimes things like flattery simply do not work. All of these modes of research lead to a simple conclusion. In order to be a better leader you need emotional intelligence of a high degree.

There are still some counterarguments though, notably a Wharton progessor named Adam Grant who has reported that there is a lack of correlation between tests results measuring emotional intelligence and business results. His methods are obviously contested by Goleman and others.

July 23, 2015

Six Rules of Leadership

With the business environment ever-evolving, how do you motivate, connect with, and inspire your team in the best, most effective way possible? Here are six practical tips that can be applied to a myriad of environments to help you become the most effective leader.

Practice compassion

When a mishap occurs, and it will, exercise compassion and empathy before coming down on your employee or jumping to conclusions. You should be hard on results, but soft on the person giving those results to you; understand what went wrong and how best to help that individual from making the same mistake again.

Trust your team

Experience has shown that staff will go above and beyond to keep an employer or managers trust, so give them all of it. Meddling in the minutiae of what your team is up to instead of giving them the tools and support they need tends to produce mixed results. So trust your staff, and they will produce great results.

Skill vs. Will

Underperformance usually comes from one of two places: a lack of skill or a lack of will. Taking time to uncover and understand the difference between the two in relation to a certain employee’s underperformance is key to fixing the problem. Skill gaps are easy to close with the proper coaching, training, and support, while will gaps are more difficult to close and require more digging into where your employees motivation lie.

Family first

Family issues are often unavoidable when managing a group of people, and allowing your team to make it their number one priority in dire times is key to performance. If they aren’t able attend to personal issues, performance will most likely suffer, and they’ll feel like their personal lives don’t matter outside of the work environment. They do, and let them know that.

Emphasize the why

When you outline why a project, assignment, client, etc., is so important, it helps gain buy-in from your team. It can motivate a team member to finish a project in a day as opposed to dragging it out over a few weeks. Letting them in on your rationale as well as your expectations helps team members feel they’re more valued.

Communicate frequently

While we all get caught up in our own daily tasks, personal lives, and the like, it’s important to make your team feel like they aren’t forgotten. Don’t wait for a quarterly or annual review to give feedback on performance, or even worse, for your team member to ask for it. Stay ahead of the ball, and regularly check-in with your staff to help them stay motivated, productive, and heard.

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