Leadership (Page 6)

FC - Rethink management

In: Leadership

It is time to rethink management, as the author Gavet starts this article explaining that she is a huge fan of formal performance reviews when they are done correctly. In the ideal world employees receive constant feedback on performance and continual development in areas they need to improve. However it hardly ever such an effective and constructive processes. In most organisations the feedback process is annual, some companies make the process quarterly but everybody is busy and managers often died or even avoid delivering any critical feedback. Performance targets are not always clarified and get out of date. The development conversations are normally more about what the individual can do for the company rather than how the company can build their skills and capabilities. Across the world companies are telling their staff that they can work from home for the foreseeable future. In a world where employees are working fromContinue Reading

wharton - rebuilding trust

In: Leadership

Leadership is a relationship that requires cultivation, influence comes from a wide variety of sources and based on respect. This article looks at the trust relationship between leaders and employees, citing recent troubles at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Target, Walmart and many more. Wharton adjunct professor management Greg P Shea offers ten steps for rebuilding trust in untrusting times. “We refer to a person who sets the direction for our travel as a ‘leader.’ We refer to a person traveling without followers as ‘a bloke out for a walk.’” Ten Steps for Rebuilding Trust Clarify your values. Determining what you stand for will provide a guiding star and help avoid common traps. As Malcolm X said, “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” Identify who you want to be as a leader. Distill what being a leader means to you and how you wish to be seen as a leader.Continue Reading

In: Leadership, Virtual Teams

This article is written by Raj Jana founder of the JavaPresse Coffe Company and he explains what he has been doing to keep the company culture going now that everyone is working from home. He proposes three specific tactics to help keep the culture alive through the virtual meetings. Nurture a meeting culture to connect employeesStructure your meetings in a way that amplifies the connection between colleagues, enable them to use the time to connect in a regular way. Establish a regular schedule for team meetings that doesn’t change, to provide a sense of stability. Give every employee the opportunity to speak, its not about the leader presenting and everyone else listening you need to engage. A good tip is using a Monday meeting to set the week’s intentions and a Friday meeting to reflect on any key learnings as a team. Mandate employee shoutoutsMake recognising individual performance part ofContinue Reading

In: Leadership, Teams, Virtual Teams

Managing your team in these difficult and confusing times requires leaders to communicate effectively in ways that measures, motivates and inspires. Your team is looking to you for guidance here are seven ways to rally the troops (and they all start with R) Realistic – Be open and honest about the current complexities. It may be uncomfortable especially communicating when next steps are unclear or not decided, but honesty demonstrates respect. Real – Be your self, be vulnerable, we are all in this together. Rapid – you know we all need to be kept in the loop and that rumours fill a vacuum. So communicate with clarity about what you know now, and what you don’t it will stop people making up the rest. Responsive – Don’t wait to get back to people, don’t wait to communicate, be proactive and responsive. Repetitive – Just because you said it once doesn’tContinue Reading

In: Culture, Leadership

Google is one of the most sought after and popular employers in the world, so it is no surprise that there are a lot of article written about how they have built their culture. This article pulls together content from a number of sources to look at the management principles that Google has applied and why. According to the New York Times, people leave a company for one of three reasons or a combination of the three. The reasons are firstly that the individuals do not feel a deep connection with the company mission or feel that their work matters. Secondly a dislike for or lack of respect for their co-workers. Third, they have a terrible boss, which is the most common reason by a long way. “Managers also had a much greater impact on employees’ performance and how they felt about their job than any other factor“ Google fromContinue Reading

Maximus

In: Leadership, Virtual Teams

Leadership organisation Maximus produce an excellent magazine with numerous articles on lessons of leadership, this article really jumped out at me. With everyone working from home, organisations have made significant changes in how they work. Not just changing the technology (video) and the location (home) but also a change in trust relationships, as leaders now have to trust their team to progress work under intense pressure and widely distributed where they are not easily monitored for support and direction. Governance Accountability and the New Era of Democratic Leadership Its not about devolving all accountability, however as Maximus Founder Vanessa Gavan says “You want to open up the boundaries of control to offer more freedom, provide employees with more context than you have ever before, engender higher levels of trust and transparency and ask for their best contribution. This is how you will fulfil their needs and capitalise on their contribution in theContinue Reading

In: Career Development, Human Capital, Strategic Mindset

Having a strategic mindset is the basis of successful leadership, it supplements your hard work with careful attention to strategy. Reflecting on what is working and identifying flaws to optimise along the way – much like an agile process. “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration” Thomas Edison In his article Robson refers to Metacognition as our awareness and understanding of our own thought processes or ‘thinking about thinking’. He provides analysis of a recent paper published by the National Academy of Sciences and explains how having a strategic mindset might be the difference between success and failure. To assess your strategic mindset Chen and the authors of the paper put together a short questionnaire, simply rate the questions below on a scale of 1 for never and 5 for all the time. The higher your score the more likely you have a strategic mindset. When youContinue Reading

In: Lead

Of course everyone knows that ‘leadership talent does not grow on trees’. So how do you go about building a team with significant potential to lead and fill the needs of the organisation. The planning for growing your talent is not just for what your organisation needs today but importantly for what the organisation is going to need in the next 3 to 5 years. In this long read Crispin Blackall has researched what a range of thought leaders, subject matter experts, consultants, business journalists and human resources professionals have to say on how an organisation should build a sustainable talent pipeline. You have heard about the war for talent, but on the other hand you know that there is a pandemic going on, which has led to a global recession and this has meant that lots of great talent is currently looking for work. So as a savvy andContinue Reading

In: Effective Communication, Leadership

According to a recent US survey 36% of adults believe conspiracy theories, so how do you talk to these conspiracy theorists and still be kind? I know from personal experience that it can be a frustrating experience dealing with conspiracy theories especially on social media. This week a former colleague posted on Facebook that she had decided to unfollow an old school friend as they were posting conspiracy theories online. Her post resonated immediately as I had also found myself in an online debate with a former school mate whose views I couldn’t just let pass. So what is the best way to engage? Tanya Basu from MIT Technology Review has some advice: Always, always speak respectfully. Speak with respect, compassion, and empathy and people are more likely to listen to you. Go private. When you reach out in a personal message or DM you are not publicly shaming the individual – it impliesContinue Reading

In: Career, Effective Communication, Resilience, Time Management

There are lots of reasons where a meeting or group session that once might have been important and highly relevant stops being your top priority. When that happens you have to choose to be fully engaged or to break up with your commitments! It could be a regular social engagement, or a working group where you were included for ‘your perspective’, or maybe it is a voluntary activity that is no longer top of your list of priorities. We all have them, those meetings or events in our diaries that we are not really engaged in anymore, maybe you show up, but don’t really engage, other times we ghost the meeting by not showing up but not dropping off the invite list or admitting we were no longer attending. In this article Saunders explains why you should make a formal break and provides you with four steps to go aboutContinue Reading