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“Creating Successful Leaders”

Tag Archives: Improving Leadership

December 12, 2013 3 Ways To Build Community In Your Life

I was once approached by a colleague with a very unexpected and uncomfortable suggestion: he thought I should distance myself from a particular co-worker and went as far as to suggest that by associating with this other female colleague, I was actually hurting my career.

I believe that this man was speaking from a place of genuine interest in my well-being—he thought he was doing me a favor. I knew that the person with which he wanted me to stop associating had, as of late, lost some of upper management’s support. However, I perceived this recent lack of support to be due to misunderstanding, not due to a lack of skills or business acumen. I found this person to be extremely intelligent and was learning a lot from her. So, as much as she was a personal friend, she was also someone who was teaching and guiding me with her experience and education.

Instead of accepting my colleague’s advice, I decided to respond by sharing the positive things about my relationship with this particular female co-worker. I described what I learned and valued as a result of associating with her and attempted to show a side of this person to him that he did not know. I asked him, “What better choice than to befriend someone who challenges my thinking and exposes me to things that she has learned and experienced that I have not?”

I share this story to illustrate just how hard being a part of a community can be. You will encounter people who try to sabotage the relationships you’re trying to build, and learning how to handle this gracefully can be quite the challenge. It comes as no surprise that strong communities are built upon respect, reciprocity, and courageous leadership, but how do we go about achieving this? How do we overcome the naysayers and saboteurs?

Author, speaker and consultant Peter Block shares some insight into how healthy communities are formed. Take a peek at this clip from one of his talks:

As Block says, strong communities…

1. Center on people’s gifts and strengths, and give them a space to flourish.

2. Are localized, within walking distance. Keep your community close, if not geographically, then on a personal level. Shoot for that small town feel, where everyone knows your name and everyone’s got something valuable to bring to the table.

3. Disregard labels, encourage genuine interaction. Official titles and bureaucracies are a sure way to kill community. While necessary, don’t let labels define your community. People are not numbers and labels.

Seeing past the labels and looking at personal strengths is what allowed me to defend my coworker using examples of her positive attributes. I’m glad I stuck up for her, because as I suspected, she turned out to be a great teammate and friend. Applying these three simple ideas to your community–whether in your neighborhood or in your office–will transform a stale environment into a dynamic one.

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December 3, 2013 If It’s Getting Too Easy, Shake It Up

We’re all familiar with that awful feeling of being stuck on a plateau, in a dry spell, up a river without a paddle, whatever you want to call it. After the excitement and challenge of learning something new, we get to the point of proficiency, and there is where you’ll encounter the deadly lull.

This is because your brain lights up to new challenges, releasing that feel-good chemical we call dopamine as a reward for reaching new milestones. You know what I’m talking about: that feeling you get when you finally nail the recipe that you never figured you could make, or hitting a personal fitness goal you thought impossible. It’s the joy of landing the big job, acing the tough class, or taking on a project that’s ripe for new personal growth. In other words, it’s the satisfaction that comes after long hours of frustration and failure where you go, “I got this!”

Unfortunately, once you get it, “its” magic wears off a bit. You do this new skill over and over, until your brain no longer feels challenged by what once took your full concentration. Welcome to proficiency, where it’s not a big deal anymore. It’s expected.

Author Whitney Johnson argues that the way to combat a plateau is to implement some personal disruption, writing that “We may be quite adept at doing the math around our future when things are linear, but neither business nor life is linear, and ultimately what our brain needs, even requires, is the dopamine of the unpredictable. More importantly, as we inhabit an increasingly zig-zag world, the best curve you can throw the competition is your ability to leap from one learning curve to the next.”

Don’t think of seeking out new challenges as a task you must do in order to meet the demands of the world at large. Instead, do it for yourself. Want to get that burst of accomplishment you used to get when you were still learning? Then seek out new tasks that push you outside where you’re already proficient. This is where real growth happens, and real growth leads to mastery.

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November 21, 2013 4 Ways To Delegate More Effectively

When done properly, delegation is a win-win. You end up saving time, and the person you’ve passed work onto feels valued for their unique skills. Why is it, then, that more people swamped with work don’t delegate?

Because Delegation Takes Up-Front Work

Many leaders find that it takes them more time and effort just to bring others up to speed, when what they’re trying to do is lessen their workload. Why delegate if it ends up being more work in the first place?

It’s true that you’ll need to work harder and longer when you’re preparing to delegate tasks. There will be meetings, training, negotiations, and the inevitable hiccup. But if you take the necessary time to delegate in a meaningful way, you’ll end up saving far more time and energy in the long run.

How do you do this?

Know Your Team

This is where it comes in handy to know the people who you work alongside better than just knowing their name or where they went to school. When you’re familiar with their interests, passions, and experiences, you’ll find delegation much easier. You won’t be guessing, fingers crossed, that George can take care of the task you’re passing off. You’ll be confident that he can, because you know George, and man is George competent.

What’s more, knowing your team will let you sleep better at night. Just as every mother must let their children go off into the real world at some point, so too will you need to let go of the desire to obsess over the tasks you’ve passed on to others. They’ll appreciate that you trust them enough to leave it in their hands, and you’ll be able to focus on other things.

Plan Well

If you’re delegating to a group of people, you’ll need to hold a meeting or two beforehand to help build unity within the group. They’ll go off and tackle bits of the greater project, sure, but it helps them to know how their contribution functions within the whole. It also helps you stay mentally organized as you’re the one keeping track of all the loose ends.

Which leads to…

Check In

While you should trust your team to perform well, it isn’t micromanaging to do frequent check-ins on status. Keep it friendly, and be open to their feedback. They often have great ideas to contribute and they’ll feel appreciated when you take their ideas seriously.

If you’re worried that it may be too hard to ensure that your standards are being implemented by those you’ve delegated work to, fear not, but be sure to…

Have Clear Deadlines, Goals and Expectations From The Get Go

And be specific about them. It’s better to over-prepare in the beginning and be able to ease off as your team gets up to speed than it is to go into a project unorganized and be forced to pull people off projects.

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