You never really graduate from the school of leadership because...

 

“I learn something new every day. But, even more importantly, I learn the same things over and over again.”

I was immediately struck when I heard these words. They were spoken by a world-renowned physician and neuroscientist, Dr. Steven Galetta, in his acceptance speech for a prestigious award recognizing his excellence in his profession.

Dr. Galetta said that he was always excited to acquire some critical piece of knowledge every day that he could apply to his research and in the treatment of his ailing patients.

But, even more critical to him was the opportunity every day to re-learn the fundamentals of his profession; namely in how he works with his patients. How to carefully listen to patients. How to how to take enough time with patients and how to ask the right questions to elicit accurate information.

I believe this is the central learning challenge for every leader. If you want to keep your leadership efforts vital and fresh, if you want to reach the heights of career success/fulfillment and stay there, then it is important to always be learning. But what exactly do you need to learn? 

Let’s use the example of Dr Galetta to set two goals for yourself:

1. BECOME AN AGILE LEARNER.

The most important skill a leader or any professional needs to master in order to succeed is that of becoming an agile learner. In that vein, create a Personal Learning Plan. Write down what you need to learn from the perspective of your direct reports and key stakeholders. 

Personal growth and by extension, leadership growth, does not happen automatically because people are living or necessarily because they have experiences. Leadership development must be planned, deliberate and consistent. In other words, if we want to realize our true leadership potential we have to work at it daily.

There are four primary ways to develop leadership capability.

The first is to study leadership and apply the lessons learned. In addition to Smart leadership classes there are plenty of great podcasts and videocasts (E.g. TED Talks), webinars, blogs, meet-up groups to supplement your company-sponsored formal leadership education.

The second way is to learn from your experiences at work. For example ask to be assigned to a challenging project that will provide you an opportunity to exercise your leadership. Remember that leadership is about influencing positive change. Also, stay alert. Observe situations from different perspectives. Watch how different people handle leadership challenges. Have a teachable spirit and ask for feedback and be open to criticisms about your performance. And above all don’t be afraid to fail. You’ll learn more from failing once or twice than from succeeding all the time.

The third way dovetails with the second which is to engage a professional leadership coach. The best leaders are a lot like professional golfers. The one thing that every elite golfer has, is a coach.The coach is there to watch the pro’s swing. 

Why? Because the golfer can't change what they can't see. Because the coach can see what the golfer can’t, change is possible. This kind of feedback builds champions and great leaders.

Check out our blog post: Coaching Works. Here's Why

The final way to develop your leadership ability is to find a true mentor. The mentor should have life and business experiences that you want to gain, a genuine willingness to help you along, and a positive relationship with you.

Click here to discover the origins of the word mentor.

Industry Expertise: What industry expertise should you acquire that will help you to provide necessary insights to your direct reports, peers, managers and stakeholders. Read books about your profession and industry. Follow specific LinkedIn discussion groups in your target industry and read the discussion threads to learn about key industry concerns. Pick a mentor who is successful in your field and learn from them to to absorb some of their knowledge and expertise.

Stakeholder Knowledge: Do your research into the stakeholder's organization, services, products, and customers. Set up Google alerts for every key stakeholder to facilitate this. Use tools like Nimble to track the conversations your stakeholders are having online. This can point you in the direction of new knowledge that you need to acquire.

Become A Source Of Value: The challenge you must set for yourself is the following: How do I become a source of value for my direct reports, manager, peers and other stakeholders? How do I acquire the knowledge, understanding and insights that will enable me to become the trusted adviser to my direct reports, manager and peers?

Use your Personal Learning Plan to set learning goals for yourself and to commit to the specific actions you will take to acquire that knowledge. Most importantly, share your Personal Learning Plan with a manager or a peer within your organization. You want their help to hold you accountable for achieving your goals. But, whatever it is, do at least one thing every single day. Even if it just reading for 30 minutes before you turn off the lights for the day.

2. LEARN THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN

This is just as important as Lesson #1.

Never assume that you have learned everything there is to know about the fundamentals of your profession or as a leader. You can always ask the question better. You can always listen better. You can always prepare more thoroughly for the 1:1 conversations with your directs.

Your success is more dependent on your successful execution of leadership fundamentals than in mastering specialized leadership skills. Why? Because if your fundamental leadership skills and habits are lacking, then you’ll never get the opportunity to demonstrate your advanced knowledge. 

The first step you can take to start learning the fundamentals over and over again is to turn-off your autopilot and start paying attention. You’re not perfect. There’s always room for improvement. Take the time to ask the right questions of direct reports and then really listen to their answers. 

Remember: learn something new and big and exciting everyday. Look at the fundamentals of your leadership with a fresh eye every single day and be conscious of what you can improve in order to better serve and deliver more value to your direct reports, manager,  peers and other stakeholders.  The reward will be that you’re a better leader. And, a better person.

Click here to read a related post: Leaders Like Great Athletes Never Stop Practicing the Fundamentals

Stay hungry and humble,

How to Be A Leader Who Personifies 'Grace Under Fire'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s no question about it: today’s workplace during a pandemic and economic disruption can be stressful. The long work hours, the endless flow of information, the competing demands on our attention, the rapid changes and uncertainty they bring—all of these factors and too many others to list can make us feel perpetually overwhelmed and out of control if not managed well.

Yet the conditions that lead to stress are not “bad.” They’re just reality. Every time in history has had its own set of stressors. And if you are a productive person your plate is always going to be full. When the conditions are managed well, they create incredibly fulfilling work. We can be grateful for that while also acknowledging that it’s not easy. But I always like to come back to what Scott Peck said in he Road Less Traveled : “Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult.”
 

It’s the leader’s job to deal with the conditions and problems that lead to stress in a way that keeps everyone on track. (Think about it this way: if things always went well we wouldn’t even need leaders!) And middle managers face even more of a challenge because they have to balance the needs (and stress) of their team with the expectations (and stress) of their leaders.

All that said, how we manage ourselves in the middle of the storm is everything. Relationships are defined by how we behave under stress. Difficult, busy times can put strain on relationships, but they can also forge stronger bonds if handled the right way. It all comes down to your ability to show grace under fire. When your team sees you pull things together and navigate them out of a tricky situation, it can be a huge credibility builder. Conversely, when they see you fall apart, it can create a trust deficit that is hard to recover from, even when things settle down.
 

How you behave when times are bad truly defines you as a leader and sets the tone for how others manage the situation. If you create a culture where people fall to pieces when things get tough, it will be too stressful for employees (and they will likely leave), productivity will suffer, and all this ultimately will make your job harder.

A few suggestions for managing yourself with grace under pressure :

First, eliminate as much stress as you can by being a well-run organization. Work to create a best odds environment for eliminating problems. Things will go wrong from time to time. You can’t control everything. However, there are lots of things you can control. Make sure you have good processes and procedures in place for eliminating avoidable headaches. For example:

+ Plan for disaster by learning from mistakes and fixing the culprits.

+ Identify stress points and think critically about who they impact. What is causing increased workloads? Use this evaluation to decide where to delegate work, and identify team members who might need additional support. (Don’t lower expectations. This will only breed excuses and erode performance over time.)

+ Say no (Or not yet) to some requests. This way you don’t have to scurry around trying to do them and then later explain why you didn’t get them done. 

+ Learn to prioritize (and teach others to as well.) Everyone is busy and they should be. Just use a prioritized list to work in a sensible order (evaluating daily what is most important). Often we try to close out small tasks to make room for bigger ones, when what we should be doing is prioritizing our to-do list and staying focused on the things that really matter. Just “getting things done” may feel good in the moment but what really matters is getting the big things done.
 

+ Simplify when things get stressful. Bring order and clear thinking o chaotic situations. Keep an eye on what really matters, and what can be cut away. A good leader can make a potentially crushing workload feel manageable. By taking a cool and methodical approach, you can make a huge difference in helping others stay focused and productive and keep their stress reactions in check.

Create a culture of focus and calm. Be sensitive to the messages you’re sending out. Model focus and calmness when things are chaotic. You teach your employees how to behave based on how you behave. The things leaders do, both positive and negative, get mirrored. And research shows that the ripple effect of negative emotions is considerably more intense than that of positive emotions. If employees see you panicking, they are likely to panic. If they see you staying calm and focused on solutions, they will mimic this behavior as well.

Also, try not to show physical signs of stress. Wringing your hands and pacing around anxiously will not make things better. In fact, it will likely make your employees  worried and stressed out, negatively impacting their performance.
Don’t blow things out of proportion. 

Do everything you can to keep a level head Sometimes our tempers flare when things are stressful. Try to avoid letting little things turn into big problems. When leaders lose their cool, problems only escalate. People get upset and their productivity plummets. Plus, explosions can cause long-term damage and tank a leader’s credibility. In the end, all of this means more time fixing avoidable problems.

Be careful about the words you use and the stories you tell. Avoid using words like “slammed” or “overwhelmed.” There is nothing wrong with stating that you are busy, but how you talk about being busy and carry yourself impacts others. It has a ripple effect. Just because you are stressed doesn’t mean everyone else has to be. Don’t bring your stress to the people.

Keep the past in its place Leaders can generate lot of stress for themselves and others by rehashing mistakes and misses. Yes, frame these mistakes as learning experiences but don’t keep talking about them over and over and telling the story. It just becomes gossip at that point. Instead of focusing on past challenges, look for what’s right and constantly celebrate bright spots. This shifts the focus inside the organization.

Don’t pretend to be fearless. A common mistake leaders make is to pretend that everything is fine when it clearly isn’t. Sometimes acknowledging that a situation or negative circumstances real, and possibly even scary, is the best way to build trust with your team and get them to invest 110 percent on solving the problem. This is not the same thing as getting bent out of shape. You can be honest and calm at the same time.

Put some ground rules in place to help others manage stress. Busy, stressful times are when you need cooperation and engagement the most. Yet it’s during these times that tension builds, emotions run hot, and people explode or otherwise behave badly. Recognize this and put a plan into place to help people deal with frustrations and conflict in a way that won’t harm the team’s ability to perform. For example, you might ask everyone to be mindful of their tone when communicating while under pressure. You might also ask others to jump in and help when they see a coworker getting overwhelmed. As a leader, you not only need to manage your own stress but also help others manage theirs as well.
 

Master a few tactics for calming yourself down and teach others to do the same If you feel yourself starting to get overwhelmed by stress, here are a few ways you can calm yourself down quickly:

+ Control your body. Don’t let it control you.

+ Walk away. Take a 20-minute break. Sometimes you have to do this.

+ Go for a walk. Physical activity is a great stress reliever. It can help you calm your mind and get some much-needed clarity around what needs to happen next. Little breaks like this are a great opportunity to plug in your headphones and listen to a quick song or audio file that might help relax you. Even better if you can get outside, even for just a moment. Most of the time, a little natural sunlight can make a big difference in our mood.

+ Open up your body and take a few deep breaths. Put your shoulders back, head up, and stand tall. Try to intentionally quiet your mind. This is a technique professional athletes have known and used for years to manage stress before a big game. Opening up the body allows for better blood flow, and deep breathing puts more oxygen in the blood and can help minimize the impact of cortisol (the stress hormone).

+ Count backward from 10. Do it twice if you have to. Shifting your focus from the problem at hand to a relatively simple task can help you come back to your work with a fresh set of eyes. It also helps your brain reset and refocus. Moving the focus away from your problem and onto an abstract thought, even one as simple as counting from 10, will also help you calm down, and control your emotional response. It forces you to use a different part of the brain.
 

Create a best odds plan for staying healthy. This gives you the stamina you need—both physical and mental—to cope with stress and keep going. Sleep well, eat well, stay hydrated, and generally take good care of your body so you’ll be in tip-top shape mentally. This requires discipline and planning, but health and well-being are too important to leave to chance. 

Good habits fall to the wayside during busy times. You may be tempted to skip lunch because you’re too busy to eat or you stayed up till 1 a.m. working. Remind yourself that this is counterproductive. You can’t perform if you are sleep-deprived and sugar-crashing because you didn’t take time to pack a nutritious lunch and ate from the vending machine instead. If you aren’t healthy you won’t be able to cope when tress levels kick into overdrive.

Be resilient/learn to reset Setbacks will happen. Leaders must be able to bounce back quickly and continue to move forward even when things appear to be falling apart. Resiliency is essential as leaders need to have the mental wherewithal to offer support and continue to direct their teams. Being resilient comes from having good coping skills, supportive environments with a lot of psychological safety, a strong sense of optimism, grit, and having the mental and physical stamina to sustain and move through stressful situations. Work on all of these factors but also know that resiliency also comes with growth.

As with everything else, experience counts for a lot. The more seasoned leaders will be better at handling stress just because they have had so many years to learn to cope. They’ve seen what can hap- pen when they don’t handle stress well and they are more motivated to change. If you are a new leader, know that this is a skill you build just like everything else. Use the tools and tactics discussed earlier and know that it gets easier every day.

As Paul Harvey once said, “In times like these it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.”

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

 

The Enormous Cost of Unclear Communication--And What To Do About It

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Grossman reported in “The Cost of Unclear Communications” that a survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees each cited an average loss per company of $62.4 million per year because of unclear communication to and between employees. Debra Hamilton asserted, in her article “Top Ten Email Blunders that Cost Companies Money,” that miscommunication cost even smaller companies of 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year. 

Communication is hard. Cascading communication – getting a clear and consistent message shared – is harder. Doing it remotely? That brings another level of complication. The good news is that, while hard, there are things you can do to improve the chances that everyone hears and understands your messages, no matter how many layers or how many total people there are in your organization

Consider the telephone game you played as a kid – the one you played without phones.  One person started by whispering something to someone, who whispered it to someone else, who whispered it again.  Then the last person shared what they heard… and everyone laughed since it (mostly) wasn’t what they heard, and thought they told.  This is the corollary to what happens (without the whispering) when leaders are cascading communication.  Unfortunately, organizationally, it isn’t always a game and miscommunication can be more costly than humorous.

Here are four strategies you can use to improve the chances that the message sent by the first person are preserved and understood by the last receiver.

Start with the Big Idea

Recently a spontaneous game of telephone happened at a family gathering.  A message survived almost perfectly intact through seven people. The key?

A five-word message.

There is no chance people are going to remember everything in your 22 (or 122) slide presentation deck. Most organizations will have fewer cascades than seven, but nearly always a far more complex message.

If you are initiating the message, make sure you can write the big idea and key points on an envelope.  If you can’t, chances that any of it survives several telling’s are low. Know that big idea before you start creating those PowerPoint slides, and only include what is needed to support the big idea.

If you are in the middle of the communication cascade and you aren’t clear, ask for some clarification before you retell it and inadvertently make the message further muddled.

Put the Communication in Context

I know, your message is more than five words, and the details matter.  When the big idea is clear, and it is connected to your goals, and objectives, people have something to hold on to and it allows them to understand and remember the details far better.  Help people see the big picture in connection with everything else that is happening in the organization.

Make sure you answer the question are thinking even if they don’t ask – why are we doing this?

In short – when cascading communications always make sure you are connecting the dots between this new communication and people realities, projects, and interests.

Create Feedback Loops

In the telephone game, there is no chance to ask questions to clarify what you heard before you passed on the message – that is part of the game.  Too often organizational communication is treated the same way, even though it isn’t a game at all. Check for understanding at each level. If you are initiating the communication, make sure those who will share it first are crystal clear on that message, and encourage them to create similar feedback loops.

In addition, create ways for information to flow back upward towards the original communicators to improve alignment of the intended message.

Use Multiple Mediums

If one telling always worked our lives (and cascading communication) would be much simpler. Communication is too important to be left to one pronouncement. Yet to get communication to be received effectively – especially through several layers, and even more so when doing it remotely – it must be repeated.

Repetition supports understanding and memory.

Yet as communicators, we don’t want to be repetitious.

This conundrum can be overcome in a remote workplace by sharing the message in different ways using different communication mediums.  We can’t rely on face-to-face communication, but we can share slide decks (after the big idea is clear), send emails, shoot videos, discuss in team meetings.

Same message, different mediums.

Your goal?  To create repetition (and therefore understanding and memory) without being repetitious.

Putting it Together

Cascading communication is hard, but when you plan and apply these four ideas, your chance for success will rise rapidly.  Be patient with the message and the recipients because what you are communicating is too important to leave to chance.

Click here to read a related post. The # 1 Communication Error (2 min read)

To your greater success and fulfillment,

 

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The # 1 Communication Error

 

 

The number one communication error is called the "usual error."

The usual error  is assuming that other people are just like you.

Assuming that others think like you, would react to a certain situation like you would, or value the same things you do — all of these are examples of the usual error. Psychologists call it false consensus bias: we project our own perceptions, opinions, and emotions onto another person, as if our experiences were theirs. We all do this. We do it all the time; that’s why it’s called the usual error. Making the usual error isn’t something to fear, it’s something to notice. In our experience, most miscommunications stem from the usual error. When you learn to recognize that it’s happening, you can turn arguments into opportunities for understanding.

The usual error manifests in many forms, often subtly. We assume that others’ boundaries are the same as ours. We assume that others’ communication styles and personality types are the same as ours. We assume that others can know what we’re thinking and know what we need without us having to ask. We assume that others’ definitions for words are the same as ours and we judge the intent behind their words based on our own assumptions. We assume that others’ memories of shared events are the same as ours. We assume that others value the same things we do and fear the same things we do. We assume that others’ bodies have the same physical limitations and thresholds as ours. We assume all kinds of things about other people all the time.

Everyone does this. It’s not bad or wrong; it’s part of being human. The usual error is something that happens behind the scenes, in the subconscious mind.

One way to reduce the frequency of the usual error is to do regular clarity checks with the people you are communicating with. Rather than just assuming that the message you're receiving (or sending) has the same meaning as the other person--stop and confirm that it actually does. It's a simple practice but one that will prevent unnecessary misunderstandings and all the consequences (both major and minor) that go with them.

We've probably made the usual error in writing this blog by assuming that the reader will relate to the examples in the same way we've intended them.

And so it goes...

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.