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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.

March 20, 2016

How Leaders Should Support Internal Hires

When hiring external candidates for various open positions at a company, there is a certain process that allows for support, training and structure offered to the new employee regardless of department. Unfortunately, far too commonly internal hires lack various forms of structure which is generally offered to employees who come externally from other firms, companies or organizations.

Unlike internal hires, external hires received intensive onboarding support, briefings on how the business or organization operates and emotional support to assimilate to the new company culture. In many companies, the process related to helping internal hires or employees to adjust to their new job was often times less prioritized for resources to help guide newly employed external candidates.

Faulty leadership can create a mentality for new internal hires based on the “sink or swim” notion that definitely is more detrimental to not only, the employee, but also for the department she/he is currently affiliated with. This overall lack of emotional support in various areas is prone to not only a high turnover, but, in addition, a great loss of talent that has not been properly fostered in a nurturing way geared towards long- term success.

As an increasing amount of companies and organizations are realizing this fault in what is called their “inboarding process,” this provides an ideal time for leaders to initiate the necessary changes in order to alter the ineffective nature of the process in place.

According to a recent study at Genesis Advisers categorizing around 500 leading HR companies, roughly a third of new hires at any given company are employees from other internal departments. One very useful way for leaders to rectify this lack of support in this employee transitional phase is to most effectively “assess transition risk” in order for every party involved to benefit from this internal transfer.

The first step for leaders to better understand and assess transition risk is to create a model to frame major shifts in the company. These shifts can include promotions, business deals between departments and their brief job history. With all these factors in mind, this could develop into an essential tool to decipher the kind of support need for internal hires.

The main takeaway from this assessment of the transitional risk model is to not only better set priorities in a more effective way, but also for leaders to dismantle to the ongoing politics or setbacks in departments where internal transfers are made. This will in turn create a more holistic level of awareness across various areas to improve both individual and professional performance.

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.

December 21, 2015

Valuable Habits of Personable Leaders

When comparing different types of leaders, it is clear that often times people respond better to individuals that treat them with respect and kindness, rather than leading with an iron fist. The saying that you can “attract more honey with bees than vinegar” is a concept that is relevant anywhere in many facets in life, and especially within the realm of the workplace. Dr. Travis Bradberry, author of the bestselling book “Emotional Intelligence 2.0”, explores a range of habits that effective leaders use by engaging best practices that focus on emotional and social awareness.

1. The Power of Personal Connections

Even if it may seem implied, likable leaders have the tendency to communicate with people in way that makes the other person feel as if he/she is the only one in the room. When leaders make an effort to engage with his/her employee by treating said person like another person rather than a subordinate, it can leave the conversation on a positive note.

2. Humbleness is Key

Noticing arrogance in anyone is an uncomfortable experience, especially if that person is someone you report to. With this in mind, leaders are more well-liked when they don’t brag about their accomplishments in conversation or remind you constantly of the fact they’re super successful. Sometimes when a leader is arrogant it can create an emotional environment where he/she is deemed not only unapproachable, but also unlikable due to subtle verbal cues that the other person can clearly pick up on.

3. Positivity

How you say things can truly affect people and the working relationship that you both share. It never hurt for a personable leader to give a few words of encouragement or nicely phrase ways an employee can improve a certain skill set without being negative or hurtful. By simply phrasing a certain failure or mishap as a hopeful opportunity for improvement or a learning experience, employees can therefore view situations like these from a different perspective.

4. Noticing Potential

Understanding and appreciating employees who demonstrate certain skills or have a strong work ethic is essential when becoming an effective, personable leader. When a leader notices qualities in an employee and makes an effort to improve those skills by nurturing them for the betterment of the company, basically everyone wins.

5. Reading people

Personable leaders usually pick up on linguistic cues such as tone, facial expression and body language to truly understand how/why their employees are feeling about different situations. In this sense, they use high social awareness to essentially put themselves in their employees shoes.

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