10/11/16

Effective Leadership


To advance your career it is important to learn new skills. You cannot have quality service without trained and motivated people. Leadership is blending the tough and tender sides to take people and the business to new heights. Leadership is balancing the demanding and the caring.

Know Yourself. Effective leaders know their innate talents, strengths and weaknesses. They capitalize on strengths while encouraging growth in others. They work on their weaknesses while offsetting the disparity with co-workers who excel in that area. They pursue personal growth; address fears head on, eliminate negative emotions and continually set forward goals.

Establish trust through relationship. Correction fears or evaluation dreads disappear as you develop relationship. Everyone wants constructive input from a friend.

Provide a learning atmosphere. Learn and improve by holding ‘group think’ sessions. My definition of synergy is “all of us are smarter than any of us.” Put egos aside. Allow each person to give positive points as well as improvement points. Brain storm together to determine effective communication, customer service, or whatever the issue may be.

Handle losses with grace and maturity. Everybody has difficulties; it is how you handle them that set you apart from the pack.

Grade on the curve. Give the benefit of the doubt while holding to accountability.

“What” verses “Why”. Asking “Why” comes off as accusing and encourages excuses and arouses negative emotions. Looking at “What” promotes accountability and problem solving. “Why” looks at the here and now; “What” looks at the present and future.

Play “What If”. Not for doom and gloom and do not get bogged down in worst case scenarios, but evaluate the possible outcome and what fail safes need to be put in place.

Assign tasks and accountability. Name a specific individual to a specific task. Giving general directions such as “someone needs to ..” leads to no follow through because of lack of delegation. When ambiguous orders are given, staff assumes another will do the task and your problems are compounded by personality conflicts.

Assess if your message is getting through. According to Management Resources, a person’s body language indicates confusion. A confused person will do one of the following six things: 1) Avoid eye contact; 2) Tilt their head; 3) Squint the eyes; 4) Close their mouth and keep it closed; 5) Lower their eye brows; 6) Cross their arms and/or legs.

Take Action. The best laid plan will never work without action. Use the 48-hour rule. The longer the delay in starting a project, increases the waning of enthusiasm for solving issues and the more the problems are compound. Set project deadlines as well as incremental action steps for accomplishment.

Baby steps are okay as long as you are going in the right direction. Several small leaps prepares you for the big jump when it comes.

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