Leadership

There is no question of the importance of body language, it says all sorts of things about how we are feeling, (moods, stress levels) in conveys our engagement and reflects our EQ. Many of these non verbal clues might actually be messages we do not want to share.. “You make an impression in less than seven seconds” Carol Kinsey Goman This article provides analysis of a series of stories from various writers on the topic, explaining the mistakes people make and ways to correct them. LeAnne Lagasse writing for The Helm explains how leaders have significant non verbal methods to communicate accessibility or approachability. She looks at three of the biggest mistakes that a leader can make with respect to non verbal communication. You use an indirect body orientation, closed posture, or increase physical space between you and your employees You consistently look too stressed or too busy to beContinue Reading

Synopsis of an article from SmartBrief Leadership by Art Pretty, Published 25th June 2020 In this article Art shares some ideas and approaches on how you can build your network and collaborate more effectively across your organisation (without compromising your values). The ‘facts of organizational life’ Organisational politics are everywhere and sadly there is no escaping it, from the parent teacher association to community sports to the executive team. Some how in all environments where decision making authority exists, so too does the politics around making those decisions. “That’s workplace power. The challenge for everyone else is how to either cultivate power organically or to tap into decision-makers’ power.” Three approaches for growing your influence at work 1. Develop strong networks to help grow your influence Building a strong network provides support, guidance and insider knowledge. “It gives you access to private information and individuals with unique skill sets.” SoContinue Reading

Synopsis of an article from Chief Executive By Alain Hunkins, Published June 19, 2020 Alain uses situational leadership learnings from multi-billion dollar fitness brand CrossFit and the resignation of its CEO (and founder) Greg Glassman after he failed to act in an appropriate way in responding to racism and the black lives matter protests that followed the death of George Floyd. How bad did it get? Well Glassman had made some tweets and discussed the issue on a Zoom call with affiliate gym owners and the executive leadership team. The content may be considered by many as not racist of massively offensive, however it clearly lacked any empathy and it showed he was way out of touch with his sponsors, partners, customers, and staff. Shortly before he resigned the companies biggest sponsor (Reebok) cancelled their support and hundreds of affiliate gyms announced they would no longer be working with CrossFit.Continue Reading

Manage Anxiety

A Synopsis of an article by Lolly Daskal taken from her book The Leadership Gap. Many leaders suffer from anxiety to some degree and its important to recognise that and consider appropriate tools that can help to manage it. Lolly suggests techniques to help manage anxiety as a leader: Acknowledge your anxiety without denying itseek to understand why its come up and enable yourself to better address and manage it. Accept your anxiety without attachmentThe best way to deal with it is to accept it, don’t try to fight or control it, instead accept it and you are already making progress in moving through it. Surf the wave without getting swallowed up by the currentRecognise that you might not be in top form until things settle down. The goal is to learn to surf the waves and harness their power without being overwhelmed. Watch for patterns and label your feelings“ItContinue Reading

Smart People Get Fired

Synopsis of article from Forbes by Tony Ewing Published 14th June 2020 Tony explores personal experience of people he knows who were recently fired, he reflected that these people are some of his smartest friends and they were working for businesses that had plenty of funding (in fact many also had government bailouts). So why were they targeted? In this article he explores five possible reasons using behavioural science. “Barring a complete corporate collapse, smart and competent people should never get fired.“ Some bosses mass fire out of fearwhen the going gets tough it is very easy to get caught up in a negative bias that anchors them to the worst outcome. In this scenario preparing for the worst actually creates tunnel vision and paralysis. Some bosses become slave to the CFO’s budget and many CFO’s hold the mindset that cutting heads is the most effective way to cut costs.Continue Reading

Three Star

Wally Brock writes on the blog Three Star Leadership that life as a leader brings plenty of ups and downs and a journal is a useful tool that can help you bring it all together. Get a Little Better Every Day – its a record of your leadership life chronicle your events at the end of the day and your journal helps you learn from previous experience. Stay Focused on Your Goals – Goals help concentrate your energy and set your priorities, set yourself a list of what you want to achieve each day. Learn to get better at managing your own priorities. Reflect – a journal lets you capture your thoughts, use them to help you go back and learn about yourself. Think Things Through – write your problems down – it helps you clarify your thinking before you share it with others Analyse Trade-offs – use the BenjaminContinue Reading

Personal Space

Vy Luu explores how different personal space is when we are all working from home. It requires a kind of boundary setting, learning the skills to respect boundaries across remote teams and a different kind of collaboration. She outlines four concepts1. Personal Space Zones2. Protecting our Space Virtually3. How to ask for Online Personal Space4. How to show respect for Virtual Space of Others at work You can (and you should) read the whole article here on Medium in the ‘Better Humans’ blog. https://medium.com/better-humans/navigating-personal-space-in-todays-virtual-environment-9dcd62028456Continue Reading