Encourage Career Development Planning?Make Learning Fundamental

Nothing gives a genuine leader more true joy than developing people by helping them gain new skills, acquire new knowledge and grow toward significant personal and professional goals. For such a person, seeing people develop and blossom in their work can become a defining experience for a leader?a great source of personal satisfaction.

Start by getting to know each member of your staff or team in order to understand the forces that drive their lives. Are there goals they?ve repressed because of continuous discouragement? With your support are they likely to take risks and make commitments that previously were considered totally impossible? By so doing, your people will come to see you as the possibility coach, the person who causes them to more fully trust themselves.

If your organization supports individual initiative to attain job-related skills or provides reimbursement for academic credit, make encouraging their participation a priority. If some are required to leave early or come in late in order to attend a class, be supportive. Their gratitude will likely cause them to make up the lost time.

If your organization does not support academic learning or skill development, you can find ways to help your people learn through your own efforts and by sharing the knowledge, experiences and sources of inspiration that have helped you achieve your personal goals. Every leader is a role model and strives to set an example.

For a leader, succession planning is a work in progress. Because as a leader who is likely to be promoted, it should be your goal to prepare those who can in the natural order of things progress to higher levels of responsibility. True, only one can become your successor; however, those who also are well prepared for promotion can find other roles within or outside the organization.

When Jack Welch chose a successor at G.E., those who weren?t selected became highly attractive as CEOs of other companies because they were known to have been groomed for success. While this analogy may be a bit sophisticated by comparison, the concept is applicable at any level.

Good day and good work,

Norman

Motivate and Empower?It?s easier than you think!

Making people feel valued is not hard to achieve, if you are serious about having motivated employees. We all respond positively when we feel appreciated and respected as human beings and as members of a team. A participant in a recent workshop I conducted called Performance Leadership shared a revealing experience. She described the elation felt by her husband when a senior manager called him by name. A simple gesture, but powerful.

Too often we get so caught up in the busyness of the workplace that we forget how little expressions of gratitude and appreciation can buoy the spirits of a staff and make their challenging work seem less onerous. Simple courtesy goes a long way toward creating a harmonious environment characterized by consistent and stable productivity.

One key way we can express respect and consideration is to listen to the expressions of our people when they have needs and problems that we can address. When we listen attentively and with interest, people feel that our responses are genuine which reinforces the trust we?ve worked so hard to establish. Whether we establish routine meeting times, to share needed information, or convey a willingness to listen to people when they need us, we empower people.

Being open-minded to new ideas is a valuable motivator to a staff or a team. People feel valued when they know the boss will listen to their ideas. Too often, as leaders we may tend to reject anything that we don?t understand without giving it a fair hearing. If you saw Pearl Harbor, you know that the idea for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo came from a submarine commander. It?s a good thing someone listened!

Finally, recognition and praise, wherever it?s deserved, should be generously applied without bias or favoritism. Later on, we?ll look at the research on motivation that reinforces these concepts and validates their use. Let?s remember that the golden rule says, ?Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.? But the platinum rule goes further to the point: ?Do unto others as they would be done unto.? Practicing the latter, you?ll never go wrong.

Good day and good work,

Norman

Building Trust: The foundation of leadership

Trust can be hard to achieve and can be lost in the blink of an eye. Building trust with a team or a staff can only be accomplished by consistently being fair, truthful and willing to stand up for your people.

Do you set clear expectations, give meaningful reasons and define the methods for achievement? I often hear it said, ?I?ve got no time to explain why things need to be done, much less how to do them.? Yet these considerations motivate high levels of performance, because people feel valued in an environment of shared communications. In my years in publishing, we had a saying, ?We?ve never have time to do it right, but we?ve always time to do it over.? Taking the extra time will save you time and money.

Are you always truthful? Being truthful and ?telling it like it is? are two different things. Although you don?t have to tell all the truth, if you want to be trusted you have to be worthy of trust. In order to be trustworthy, you must be truthful. It isn?t necessary to violate confidences or reveal proprietary information. But sharing all the information you can, is a strength that your people value.

Do you set SMART objectives for your team? Are they Specific? Measurable? Achievable? Realistic? And Time-bound? How often have you been handed DUMB objectives? Depressing? Unrealistic? Meaningless? And Benumbing? If handed DUMB goals, can you and your team make them SMART? You?ve heard it said, ? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.? Turning DUMB goals into SMART goals often is a matter of leadership. Your people will respond positively when they know you are committed to making their work meaningful, exciting and fun.

Coaching and mentoring opportunities are plentiful and easy to employ. It only takes a little common sense and the desire to create a people-centered workplace.

Becoming a leadership coach

Would you like to:

1. Make better hiring decisions: reduce your turnover and boost productivity?your?s and that of the bad hires who don?t fit your culture?

2. Create a workplace environment that will fill your employees with commitment and the determination to produce quality work?

3. Build diversity in your workplace in order to strengthen your workforce and enhance creativity?

4. Keep the people you want for as long as you need them and get the best they have to give while they are there?

No matter who you are or what you do, you can become an effective leadership coach.
The primary requirement is commitment and a willingness to understand that getting the best from people will make the difference between your success and failure. With this insight and an understanding of the people you lead, you will achieve levels of performance
that will exceed everyone?s expectations?yours and the people above you.

Whether leaders are born or made is not the issue. Leaders become leaders because they want to do the things that will make work life easier and happier and more productive in the process. Leaders are entrepreneurs because they think strategically and constantly look at the big picture, they think creatively and they understand motivation.

Don?t think that being a leader means giving up control, quite the contrary. The control is exercised by the people you lead, which makes them happier and more productive. By giving the people you lead more control, you effectively increase the control through increased responsibility.

Good day and good work,

Norman