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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.

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