Thank you for connecting, sharing your perspectives, thoughts, and experiences. I learned more about leadership, people, and myself than I ever expected. I am filled with gratitude because of you and the experience. I am especially grateful to my friend Aaron who passed earlier this year. I will treasure the lessons from the Bloody Knuckles Garage, his humanness, and grace. As I wrap up the year, I am sharing a few of my favorite words, phrases, and ideas that you gifted to me.
Be more elephant and less hippo
The Mid-Leader Six As goes the middle, so goes the organization. Would you follow you? The Unknowing Mentor What did your habits do for you today? LEADER Seek first to understand before being understood. Tap into the superpowers of your Team. Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. People are not on the Team; they are the Team. They follow you not because they have to but because they want to. So That… Create that Friday feeling. Wisdom is doing now what you will be happy with later. Like weeds, you have to manage or prune away toxic behaviors. Talking at the speed of trust. Find your gratitude. The power of the pause. People are your purpose.
Page through my posts if you would like a refresher on any or reach out to me. What was your favorite? Feel free to print and post the word art. Take care of people and take care of yourself.
00Jeff MarquezJeff Marquez2022-02-09 18:45:552022-02-09 18:45:572021: A Challenging Year in Reflection
Values misalignment can be one of the costliest mistakes, both financially and emotionally.
On a recent Monday, I had one of the most energizing discussions with my mastermind group. The topic was values. When was the last time you had an honest discussion about your Team or business values, about your values? Are you able to put your values into practice? How do you apply values when talking to potential clients, or do you even consider them? How do you engage and discuss values with your employees? How do values weave into your world of work?
Values misalignment can be one of the costliest mistakes, both financially and emotionally. They are rarely discussed except in one-way conversations when the boss shares their values, and we see them plastered on the walls. You can do better.
Christopher Kolenda, Ph.D. and Strategic Leaders Academy developed a short questionnaire to help you determine your “What/Values” archetype to help you define the moral and ethical values most important to you so that you can hire, partner with, and support the right people. It is a pairwise comparison based on the Stoics’ four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and self-discipline. The six archetypes are:
– The Executive (Self-discipline and Wisdom) – best known for keen discernment and quiet competence. They tend to emphasize sound decision-making, persistence, and keen stewardship of resources.
– The Decision-Maker (Wisdom and Courage) – best known for keen discernment and willingness to take sensible risks. They tend to look for and seize upon key opportunities that others miss.
– The Protector (Courage and Justice) – best known for their willingness to take a risk for the safety and well-being of others. They tend to seek roles that emphasize service and protection of vulnerable people or causes.
– The Entrepreneur (Courage and Self-Discipline) – best known for their willingness to take risks to create something of new and important social or economic impact. They tend to seek roles that enable them to create and innovate ideas, products, or causes that benefit others.
– The Advocate (Self-Discipline and Justice) – best known for their persistence in fairness and respect for others and important causes. They tend to fight over the long haul for rights in the face of complex challenges.
– The Campaigner (Justice and Wisdom) – best known for their sound judgment and fairness. They tend to seek equitable and moral solutions to complex challenges.
While there are many approaches out there, this one is accessible, ancient, and secular. Take the quiz at https://lnkd.in/gPv-TJHT , have your Team members take it, think, engage, and let the growth begin! Thank you, Chris, and the FOCUS Mastermind Group.
00Jeff MarquezJeff Marquez2022-02-09 18:43:162022-02-09 18:43:17Leading the Middle: Actionable Values
Someone is always watching, listening, and learning from your leadership.
“Why, Sir?” I asked. “I thought it would be easier to give it to you instead,” said the Operations Officer, who outranked me. I was a commander in Germany. I was at the senior level of my unit but a Mid-Leader at the next higher echelon. I do not remember the mission or task we talked about, but I’ll never forget the leadership in action that day. I responded, “Sir, it may be easier for you and the staff, but not for my Soldiers and me who have to execute.” As he looked at me, it was as if I could see the realization come across his face. We talked about it a bit more. I gave it the good fight, saluted, and left his office.
At the end of the day, I hear my Charge of Quarters calling the unit to attention. The Operations Officer walks into my office. We exchanged greetings, and the conversation went something like this, “Jeff, I changed it back, I thought about it, and you were right. You know, sometimes we, at the next level, forget what it takes to execute. We also have to remember that the staff exists to support commanders and line units.”
The leadership in action? Not that I pushed back. Not that I influenced the decision. It was about this senior officer coming to my office and taking the time to share his thoughts with me face-to-face. He could have easily told me over the phone, but that was not good enough for him. That day he unknowingly mentored me in empathy, respect, trust, humility, courage, and professionalism in one exchange. He rightly rose through the ranks, retired, and continues to lead today. He gets it.
Someone is always watching, listening, and learning from your leadership.
00Jeff MarquezJeff Marquez2022-02-09 18:41:372022-02-09 18:41:39Leading the Middle: The Unknowing Mentor – Someone is always Learning from your Leadership
Sustainable excellence requires you to have moderate talent plus discipline and a willingness to work, a support network that helps you stay at your best, and elite advisers who push you to reach new heights.
Milwaukee hosted the junior national speed skating championships this weekend. I attended because my friend’s child competed, and I love watching elite performers in their element.
Short-track speed skating is intense. Athletes race on narrow blades, skate close together and have razor-thin margins of error. You have to maintain the proper body position, pass precisely, and maintain awareness of the other skaters. We saw several wipe-outs, and thankfully, no one was hurt.
My friend’s teenager, who’s a joy to be around, swept the events and became this year’s top American junior national skater.
I asked what it takes to become a top athlete and sustain excellence over time. After all, plenty of people reach the top for a moment and then flame out. Many of the most talented people seem unable to break out of the pack. What does it take to get and stay on top?
My friend said it takes a moderately talented, disciplined athlete, parents eager to support them, and a terrific coach who can bring out the athlete’s best.
Two out of three, she said, were not good enough. A talented athlete who has supportive parents but a poor or abusive coach will never become the best they can be. Unsupportive or badgering parents will ruin the sport and drive even the most disciplined and best-coached athlete to quit. Lack of discipline or dedication will keep even the best coached and supported athlete mediocre. As a trusted adviser to elite performers and organizations, I find her principles equally applicable to business.
Sustainable excellence requires you to have moderate talent plus discipline and a willingness to work, a support network that helps you stay at your best, and elite advisers who push you to reach new heights.
If you don’t put in the work, even the best peers and coaches aren’t going to create miracles for you. Disciple and great coaching can come undone if you have associates dragging you down, nay-saying, and trauma-dumping. Failure to invest in elite advisory support means you won’t grow and innovate enough to stay on top.
Where are you in the discipline — peer-group — trusted adviser Venn diagram? You’ve got the talent and work ethic. What steps will you take, what excuses will you put aside to get the other two working for you?
Reaching Elite Performance
Time Management for Real People helps you thrive at the intersection of energy, time, and priorities. You will come away from the masterclass with a sustainable personal rhythm that organizes your time, maximizes your high-energy periods, and puts your priorities first so that you are voting with your time and energy on what’s most important to you. The masterclass is on February 16 at 3:30 pm U.S. Central. The fee is $249 until February 10, and then $379 after that. Register here.
Predictable unpredictability is a new reality. How will you help your clients thrive? The Innovation Mindset is an 8-week mastermind that begins in February. We’ll examine the most important 2022 forecasts for implications to small business leaders, consultants, and experts. Each week, the group meets for 90-minutes to develop unique intellectual property that sets you apart from the pack (who’s always swinging behind the pitch) and gives you significant competitive advantages in serving your clients. Your investment will pay for itself in a single sale. I’m limiting the group to 8; the fee is $5500. Reply to this email to see if the program is a good fit for you.
The Trusted Adviser Program is my most intensive 1-on-1 program. Within 90 days, you’ll gain sustainable habits that create breakthrough success. You get personalized coaching and support, strict accountability, and commonsense action steps that get results so that you reach your goals more quickly and consistently. Soar to new heights here. CEO Mastermind group is for Milwaukee-area small business leaders and consultants who want to accelerate their growth in 2022. We meet monthly for lunch, and you get unlimited access to me for coaching and advising. I’m limiting the group to 8. Four places are remaining. Reply to me for more details.
Strategic Leaders Academy – Our mission is to help successful people gain new heights by being the best versions of themselves and helping others contribute their best and most authentic selves to your team’s success.
00Christopher KolendaChristopher Kolenda2022-02-07 07:14:552022-02-07 07:18:37The 3 Foundations of Elite Performance
Unfortunately, one of our greatest human flaws is to look for the faults, negative attributes, and areas of weakness in others.
We’re hardwired to compare and judge each other—this goes for teams, businesses, cities, townships, countries, you name it, we tend to compare ourselves to others and try to make ourselves feel superior.
As leaders, we need to change this default setting. According to the book “Nine Lies About Work,” when it comes to creating high-performing teams, highlighting the positive in our employees is a MUST. Here’s the data: Ignoring your employees causes a 1 engaged to 20 disengaged ratio. Negative attention is 40x more effective than ignoring people; the ratio of engaged to disengaged is 2:1. Positive attention creates a 60:1 engaged to disengaged ratio and is 30x more powerful than giving them negative attention and 1,200 times more powerful than ignoring them.
We’re leaving enormous potential on the table when we focus on the negative attributes of our employees. Not only are employees more engaged, but they are more productive, more creative, and are better and faster learners when we focus on their strengths. Positive attention accelerates development. I see this in my own children. When I commend one of them for doing something well, they ALL want to do well. When I scold them for their negative behavior, they tend to repeat that behavior.
Action steps to highlight strengths:
Work on your own inner dialogue when it comes to your employees’ behavior. Look for and applaud the positives instead of letting your innate default setting take over.
When assisting an employee with one of their weaknesses, start the conversation with three things they’ve done well or three things that have worked in the past. This allows the conversation to live in a positive frame of mind.
Know, understand, and foster your employees’ strengths. Put them in positions at work where their strengths can shine more than their weaknesses. For example, If they’re more detail-oriented and analytical, put them in charge of the operations. If they’re more big-picture problem solvers the let them be on the creative side of the business.
Make sure the feedback, advice, and guidance you receive highlight your strengths so that this becomes the way you do business in all aspects of your life.
Make your business a positive, strengths-based business and you’ll be watching the “Great Resignation” happen to others instead of letting it happen to yourself.
https://chriskolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/unnamed-1.png5621128Laura ColbertLaura Colbert2022-02-04 10:47:272022-02-07 06:26:20Why You Need to Focus on Strengths; Building off Strengths Builds a Better Team 2021
Courageous vulnerability boosts your Team’s connections, understanding, and innovation.
When describing vulnerability, I’m not referring to Merriam Webster’s definition, “open to attack or damage.” I’m also not saying that leaders and Team members need to bear their souls and talk about all of their weaknesses. The vulnerability I’m referring to is the ability to ask for help, rely on one another, admit when wrong, celebrate Teammates’ wins, see the value in being something other than that tough-skinned Autobot that has no feelings and only thinks about creating more widgets and making more money. I’m talking about the vulnerability that produces magical moments of insight, creativity, innovation, and unites Team members through commonalities and compassion.
During the civil war, the leader on horseback was the most vulnerable person in the formation—the exemplar of courage and steadfastness in the face of danger. When there’s trust, people don’t take shots at you—they help. Soldiers rally around the leader and Teammates offer help and support. You can admit mistakes and shortcomings and you can experiment and fail. What are the limits of vulnerability? How are you modeling vulnerability and leading the charge for your Team?
I used to teach a semester-long adventure education course at a suburban high school. One of the capstone experiences was our overnight camping trip. Inevitably, we had students that had never slept outside, sat around a campfire, observed the stars outside the city limits, or cooked a meal over the fire. For some, it was very spiritual. As the night settled down, we sat in a circle around the fire and shared our hopes and dreams for our future. These nights took on a magical essence. Students bore their souls and showed their vulnerability. Oftentimes we ended the night with glow sticks and group hugs. The classes’ emotional awareness, psychological safety, and connectivity grew exponentially during those nights. This single night of vulnerability cracked open the thick layer of teenage self-consciousness, and our class moved from classmates to family.
These overnights became so legendary that students came to the campfire knowing they would shed tears and open their hearts. They anticipated a transformation with their classmates and embraced the change with open hearts. The best part? Our classes’ efficiency, creativity, productivity, understanding, and joy also increased exponentially for the remainder of the semester. The kids, who were sometimes a pain in the butt, quit their disruptive behavior. The disengaged became fully engaged. The unhappy came to school with a greater sense of belonging. The transformation was tangible.
“Vulnerability is not a weakness. That myth is profoundly dangerous… Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to a feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable the sharing is probably not constructive.” ~Brene Brown
Why it’s important:
Authenticity – Vulnerability allows each person to work as their best selves. They own their strengths, acknowledge their weaknesses, and find the best fit for their skills. They are accepted and have a strong sense of belonging.
Greater sense of belonging – Your Team will have stronger connections, a deeper understanding of each other, greater empathy and compassion, and they will be able to practice benevolence and interdependency.
Greater passion for their work – When your Team is vulnerable, they can work interdependently towards a common goal and hold each other accountable. Notice how this doesn’t say that the boss will hold everyone accountable. No, the Team will hold each other accountable. Everyone has a clear purpose, and they know what their job entails and their expectations of one another. Talk about buy-in!
What is your equivalent to sitting around the campfire or riding on horseback? What event or activity can you create to drill through the core of ego and self-consciousness? As we navigate our polarized world, how are you using this opportunity to create a deeper understanding of one another instead of a deeper divide?
Know who you are and what you stand for. Just as importantly, get to know your employees at the same level. Allow people to express themselves respectfully. When you’re vulnerable feel safe, they will stick around and willingly contribute their best.
The Trusted Advisor Program is my most intensive 1-on-1 program. Within 90 days, you’ll gain habits that create breakthrough success. You get personalized coaching and support, relentless accountability, and commonsense action steps that get results.
Additional Offerings:
Join our central Wisconsin in-person or online Impactful Leadership Lunch. Join like-minded leaders during this monthly mastermind lunch group to improve your business efficiency, boost employee retention, and get you focused on doing what gives you joy.
Are you looking for a Keynote Speaker at your next event? I use my past experiences and knowledge to show you how to be the best version of yourself, surround yourself with the right people, and build highly productive teams.
https://chriskolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/aaaaa-Laura-e1643986676378.png297460Laura ColbertLaura Colbert2022-02-04 09:48:022022-02-04 09:48:033 Reasons Why Your Team Needs to be Courageously Vulnerable: Connections, Understanding, and Innovation
People without Chests are easy Prey for the Demagogues who Pit People against each Other
“The head rules the belly through the chest,” C.S. Lewis tells us, but the belly will override the head if there’s no chest.
The metaphor is from Plato. The head => logic, the belly => emotion, and the chest => virtue. People “without chests” are viscerals, governed by emotion.
A century after Lewis and a couple of millennia after Plato, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman described two human thinking systems in his book Thinking … Fast and Slow. System 1 is the emotional, governed by the amygdala, that controls our fight or flight instincts. System 2, the analytic brain, is slower and requires more effort. You have to pay close attention when using System 2, and a threat or distraction allows System 1 to retake control.
People without chests are easy prey for the demagogues who pit people against each other. System 1 runs amok when people point to those who look, act, or think differently as an existential threat or source of evil. Restraint goes out the window when you are fighting Beelzebub.
Virtue has gone out of fashion, argues Roosevelt Montás in Rescuing Socrates, and I wonder if the absence of leaders with chests has contributed to the breakdown of our politics, corporate governance, civil society, and organizations. Only people without chests could think racism, revenge racism, misogyny, bigotry, fraud, deceit, and the like are ok as long as they advance your agenda. And yet, here we are.
Ancient Greco-Roman philosophers believed that following the four cardinal virtues — wisdom, justice, courage, and self-discipline — was essential for living the good life and having a healthy republic, army, business, or organization. Confucius and other ancient eastern thinkers wrote similarly. Practicing timeliness principles builds your chest so that your head can rule your belly.
Building leaders with chests requires learning from theory, history, and experience. You need the big ideas about fostering the common good, the history of effective and failed leaders so that you can learn from their successes and failures, and personal experience in the arena to put the chest into practice.
It’s easy to let the chest diminish. Apathy does the trick, and history shows the consequences.
Theory and history without experience put you in the ivory tower of impracticality, while theory and experience without history make you vulnerable to silly fads. Without theory, experience and history trap you in the hamster wheel of tactics without strategy.
Leaders with chests do what’s right, the right way, without you having to watch over them. Imagine the impact on your business when you have people committed to the common good who are doing the right things, taking the initiative, and innovating. Imagine the consequences of the opposite.
My mission is to help successful people like you gain new heights by being the best version of yourself and inspiring people to contribute their best and most authentic selves to your team’s success.
Accelerating your Success
Predictable unpredictability is a new reality. How will you help your clients thrive?
The Innovation Mindset is an 8-week mastermind that begins in February. We’ll examine the most important 2022 forecasts for implications to small business leaders, consultants, and experts. Each week, the group meets for 90-minutes to develop unique intellectual property that sets you apart from the pack (who’s always swinging behind the pitch) and gives you significant competitive advantages in serving your clients. Your investment will pay for itself in a single sale. I’m limiting the group to 8; the fee is $5500. Reply to this email to see if the program is a good fit for you.
The Trusted Adviser Program is my most intensive 1-on-1 program. Within 90 days, you’ll gain sustainable habits that create breakthrough success. You get personalized coaching and support, strict accountability, and commonsense action steps that get results so that you reach your goals more quickly and consistently. Soar to new heights here.
https://chriskolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ashin-k-suresh-mkxTOAxqTTo-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg14402560Christopher KolendaChristopher Kolenda2022-01-31 19:24:122022-07-26 12:38:27Building Leaders with Chests: Chests requires Dynamic Learning from Theory, History, and Experience
Just because you built buy-in doesn’t mean it will stick around. It needs cultivation and invested time.
So often, we feel as though we have to keep our cards close to our chests as leaders. We don’t want scrutiny. We worry that the plan has to be perfect—which doesn’t exist—before we reveal it. Maybe there’s a lack of trust within our Team. Perhaps we think our Team isn’t capable of thinking at our level. Or, we’re worried that our Team is not ready for change so we prolong telling them about it until the plan is done and it needs to be executed immediately.
The best way to gain buy-in? Put your people first and treat them as professionals. How do you do that? You bring them to the table. You give them the confidence to provide valuable feedback. When you have time to do so, getting people to contribute their ideas before you make a decision allows you to adopt some or all of them and increase buy-in. Gaining their ideas in advance is more plausible than gaining feedback from them after you’ve made a decision. When you make this practice a habit, then people will better understand the times when you need to make an immediate decision.
How to gain organizational buy-in:
Trust – Be authentic and vulnerable. Your Team is better together. One-on-one meetings and small team meetings are great ways to foster this trust.
Psychologically safe environment – practice empathy and compassion and create a space where everyone can have a voice.
Request input and feedback – Ask specific questions and really address your Team’s concerns—allow everyone to speak. Don’t be overly attached to ideas.
How to get buy-in for an idea:
The “WOW” factor – Let your Team know how this is going to positively impact them and the organization.
Share your journey on developing this plan – Tell them why you think this is the best one. Bring data to the table for your operational thinkers. Share examples of success. Use storytelling. Use “what if we did nothing?” or “what else could we do?” scenarios so that your team can see why this is the best way forward.
Ask for input and feedback early and often – Tell your Team that you’re still in the brainstorming stages and you want them to poke holes in the current plan.
Once you have buy-in, how do you keep it?
Communicate often – Clarify timelines, keep your direct reports and the Team updated on the progress. Document your various steps along the way on an open forum.
Establish ownership – Use “we” and “us” when discussing the Team and the plan. These simple words will spread buy-in and a sense of belonging.
Celebrate wins – Give credit to others when things go well. Take ownership of pitfalls.
What happens when you get crickets in a meeting? It could be one of three things.
Processing time – Make sure you are speaking at the speed of trust. Sometimes too much information can be overwhelming and people shut down.
Fear – They don’t want to pop your balloon, they don’t want to look stupid, they may have been burned in the past, or they are afraid of speaking up. You can eliminate most of the fear by developing trust and psychological safety.
Indifference – They may be thinking, why fix it if it isn’t broken, we’ve always done it this way, we’ve tried that before, what can I do anyways, or glad I’m not at the helm! These statements are in contrast with continuous improvement. Don’t let your Team drift with these negative mind frames.
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” ~ Steve Jobs
Do you have newly promoted leaders that you want to thrive and master their added responsibilities and challenges? Then the Lead Well program is perfect for them. SIGN UP NOW by booking a free 30-minute consultation with Laura! Only a few spots left. The next session starts in the beginning of February!
J
00Laura ColbertLaura Colbert2022-01-27 09:22:332022-01-27 12:00:14How to Gain and Sustain Buy-In
When under stress, Reconcilers, like President Biden, tend to give excessive weight to the loudest and most pious voices in the room.
I’ve admired President Biden since he visited our remote outpost in Afghanistan in 2008 and praised our paratroopers in a National VFW speech. I found his sincerity and open-mindedness refreshing, and he quickly got the importance of our relationship-building efforts to Afghans. Biden agreed that accumulating allies was more helpful than aggregating your enemies. He talks about that visit when he mentions the Kunar River Valley in his Afghanistan speeches.
I’m having difficulty reconciling his words in 2008 with his recent speech that branded half or more of his citizens as treasonous racists (here’s a favorable view of the speech). He deserves credit for building the most physically diverse cabinet in history and could benefit from boosting cognitive diversity among his advisers.
Just because people look different does not mean they think differently. Cognitive uniformity puts you in an echo chamber that leads to poor decisions. Confirmation bias is like freebasing your own gunpowder. When under stress, Reconcilers, like President Biden, tend to give excessive weight to the loudest and most pious voices in the room. [Stressed Pioneers, like Biden’s predecessor, often surround themselves with sycophants and become louder and more outrageous.]
Civil War General William Rosecrans, also a Reconciler, won a string of victories in Tennessee as his army captured Chattanooga. Battlelines drew together at Chickamauga. The Union generals nagged Rosecrans for particular places and reinforcements. The Confederates attacked when Rosecrans shifted forces to please a subordinate. The mass confusion led to a defeat that sent Union forces back to Chattanooga, and Rosecrans lost his job.
Lincoln and Eisenhower were Reconcilers, too, and valued cognitive diversity. They surrounded themselves with people committed to the common good who presented different points of view, respected each other, and challenged the leader’s thinking. This practice helped them to avoid super empowering the loudest and most pious. Their decisions weren’t always perfect, but they tended to avoid self-inflicted disasters.
Lincoln held the Union together, gained buy-in for the Emancipation Proclamation and the 14th Amendment, and won the war. Eisenhower amassed consensus to end the Korean War and build the interstate system, a large standing military, and a robust nuclear deterrent.
Cognitive diversity was also vital in the success of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. I highly recommend The Sword and the Shield (which is on my 2022 reading list) in which Peniel E. Joseph discusses Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (a Maverick) and Malcolm X (a Pioneer).\
Pioneers, Reconcilers, Operators, and Mavericks — our PROM archetypes — have distinct superpowers and different reactions when under significant stress (you tend to be your most extreme version). When you know this about yourself, you can sense the warning signs and avoid surrounding yourself with subordinates who egg you on to extremes. When you know your subordinates’ archetypes, you can recognize their stress reactions and take steps that bring them back to their best selves.
The value of history is not in teaching you what to think but in how it heightens your critical thinking skills, aids self-examination, and highlights the importance of gaining diverse perspectives from trusted sources. Freebasing gunpowder tends to create bad outcomes. Whose bringing in the fresh air for you?
Are you interested in using history to take your critical thinking skills to new heights and develop practical action steps that accelerate your success? Join me and seven others on March 15-18 for the Antietam & Gettysburg exclusive. When you have meaningful discussions with other extraordinary people at powerful venues, you gain perspective that pays dividends for life. There are three places still open.
My mission is to help successful people like you gain new heights by being the best version of yourself and inspiring people to contribute their best and most authentic selves to your team’s success.
https://chriskolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Sen-Biden-with-1LT-Morton-and-1LT-Rubio-2.jpg480640Christopher KolendaChristopher Kolenda2022-01-17 10:32:182022-01-17 10:32:19This Cognitive Diversity Boost can make President Biden (and you) Invincible
Communication, Compassion, and Clear Expectations will Boost Employee Buy-in and Belonging so that you can Retain your Team.
Managing people is one of, if not the most, difficult leadership responsibilities. Leading people can sometimes feel like herding cats. If you need a good laugh during your next break, check out this hilarious commercial.
The kaleidoscope of personalities, emotions, traumas, and conflicts creates challenges far beyond that of writing an email, creating a meeting agenda, designing a new program, and any other non-people-driven leadership tasks.
How, in a world where employees leave companies at a rate higher than ever before, can you retain your most valuable commodities—your people? You do this through consistent communication, compassion, and clear expectations.
A lack of consistent communication is akin to leading a Team blind. They may feel isolated, left in the dark, and undervalued. Trust will diminish quickly without open communication.
A leader’s level of empathy and compassion directly correlates with the Team’s joy and fulfillment. According to the Harvard Business Review, job satisfaction is 85% higher for an employee who works for a wise and compassionate leader than for an employee who does not. Empathy and compassion are powerful attributes that will enhance understanding and commitment. Without compassion, the Team moves into a compliance-driven environment.
Without clear expectations, work is based on assumptions and inefficiencies become the norm. Tear down the walls and offer clarity so that your Team has peace of mind and moves in the right direction.
Action steps to lead with enhanced communication, bolstered compassion, and clearer expectations:
Communication:
Transparency – With increased workplace anxieties, it is vital that the leaders practice transparency to ease tensions and decrease the fight or flight inclinations that plague our workforce when people are under heightened stress. Your employees need to feel as though you aren’t holding anything back.
Close the loop – We often accomplish our tasks, but how often do we close the loop with our stakeholders? For example, if you promise to speak to your direct supervisor on behalf of a subordinate but don’t relay the conversation back to your subordinate, they lose faith in you and assume that you never had the conversation.
Listen – Practice the “4:1 – two ears, two eyes, and one mouth approach.” It can be detrimental when the leader is the only one making the decision. It also eliminates a sense of autonomy and innovation with your employees. They need to feel heard and seen.
2. Compassion:
Feedback is a team effort – The book “Nine Lies About Work” and the Harvard Business Review Article “Feedback Isn’t Enough to Help Your Employees Grow” highlight the importance of positive corrective action. “Telling people they are missing the mark is not the same as helping them hit the mark.” Work through the challenge with your employees and take ownership if you were unclear with your expectations.
Honor diverse perspectives – make sure your most vulnerable feel safe so that they can contribute their best selves. If you accomplish this, your Team will have increased creativity, productivity, and joy.
Have empathy, then move into compassion – Empathy is seeing things from someone else’s perspectives, which is vital but can stall our decision-making. Empathy + action = Compassion and allows us to address others’ concerns. Once you move to compassion, you can remove yourself from the emotions, ask what they need, and guide your employee to overcome their hurdles.
3. Clear Expectation:
Let go – Layout the “what” and the “why” and let your Team discover their “how.” As Harvard Business Review describes, “Leadership is about seeing and hearing others, setting a direction, and then letting go of controlling what happens next.”
Have confidence in your Team – Have faith and patience in the process. It is more powerful to be an ally than a critic.
Delegate tasks – Your people are your priority. Use this weekly check-in outline for productive conversations. If you don’t have time to check in weekly, delegate tasks that others can do so that you can check in and clarify expectations regularly. These expectations should be multilateral. The Team has expectations of their leaders and should be able to voice them.
Do you have newly promoted leaders that you want to thrive and master their added responsibilities and challenges? Then the Lead Well program is perfect for them. SIGN UP NOW by booking a free 30-minute consultation with Laura! Only a few spots left. The next session starts in the beginning of February!
Additional Offerings:
Join our central Wisconsin in-person or online Impactful Leadership Lunch. Join like-minded leaders during this monthly mastermind lunch group to improve your business efficiency, boost employee retention, and get you focused on doing what gives you joy.
Are you looking for a Keynote Speaker at your next event? I use my past experiences and knowledge to show you how to be the best version of yourself, surround yourself with the right people, and build highly productive teams.
Book:
Sirens: How to Pee Standing Up – An alarming memoir of combat and coming back him. This book depicts the time of war and its aftermath. It seamlessly bridges the civilian and military divide and offers clarity to moral injury and post-traumatic stress.
https://chriskolenda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/unnamed-6.png366549Laura ColbertLaura Colbert2022-01-13 11:25:342022-01-13 11:25:363 Must-Dos When Leading People; Communication, Compassion, and Clear Expectations
Your leadership skills are infinitely upgradable
There's no limit to your growth. Do you want to be a leader who gets better every day?
