Blog Roll

How to Use Constraints to Successfully Drive Your Leadership

Most leaders look at constraints as things that hold them back. There’s not enough time, or the talent isn’t ready, or you recently lost a team member, or the budget just isn’t there.

It’s easy to view these challenges as excuses – the job can’t get done on time or to the expected level of quality. But in reality, constraints like these are opportunities to improve and do unexpected things.

Leaders and business owners often get comfortable with the way things have always been done. It takes someone five days to finish a report, and that works for us. Until something happens and it no longer does.

Constraints are an opportunity to get off our laurels and raise the bar on our own quality and output. And they’re a way to encourage team members to be more efficient and continue to grow.

How to Get Quality Feedback from Others

As a leader, you’re used to giving feedback to team members. But the thought of asking for and receiving feedback from others creates anxiety and triggers–from you and the people you’re asking.

Without feedback, you can’t get better faster because your ability to figure things out, to determine what’s working and what’s not, is limited to your own. You need feedback so you can see things from a different perspective and leverage the experiences of others.

There are two big challenges to feedback: First, you need to ensure your team, stakeholders, colleagues, etc. feel comfortable giving you quality, constructive feedback that may not always be positive. And second, you need to have the right mindset to accept the information, process it and do something with it.

The two go hand-in-hand, every time.

Emotion can make you a better leader

Many of us hear from other leaders, team members, even our families that we need to stop being so emotional, both at work and at home. The reality is that emotion is part of being human, so we can’t entirely avoid experiencing and expressing it.

We all experience emotion a bit differently. Some people’s feelings and expression of them are more intense while others are more moderate. And how strongly you emote depends on the situation, your past circumstances and even what else has happened to you so far that day.

Everyone is emotional, but everyone in their own way. Whatever your set point when it comes to leading and emotion, you benefit from building those skills so you can use it appropriately everywhere from the boardroom to the kitchen table.

How to shift your mindsets as a leader

Your mindsets matter. They dictate how you work and react and how you think about things. They are the set of eyes and ears through which you perceive everything. And when you don’t know exactly how your mindsets are operating, which is the case for many leaders, it can impact your ability to be successful.

A mindful leader is more aware of his or her actions and is in tune with what’s going on internally. This is who leaders should aspire to be, regardless of the popularity of mindsets in their organization.

But how? You’re not born to be mindful; it’s a skill and a practice that you must work at. And if organizations don’t train you to be more mindful, how are you to learn the skills needed?

What is a mindful leader?

There’s so much talk about mindfulness and personal growth that it often feels like there’s too much talk–but not about what that mindfulness actually looks like and how to be more mindful at work.

Leaders aren’t necessarily CEOs or department heads. They’re anyone who can influence others to achieve a result not solely for the purpose of satisfying your own interests. Leaders help others to see the value in themselves, they help others to grow and they spark and grow ideas that leads to change–in organizations and industries.

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to approach your role mindfully, with the self-awareness to know what’s going on within yourself internally. Being a mindful leader isn’t a set of experiences and CV-fillers you can check off; it’s a process and disciplined awareness that’s grown and developed through practice and intentional focus.

What is your responsibility as a leader?

Leadership is so much more than telling your team the vision of your organization or tasking them with completing the work that moves you in the right direction. But that hasn’t always been the case.

Not so long ago, the formal construct of leader was a title that meant authority. It was simply making decisions and telling people what to do. Or that’s what many thought.

The bar wasn’t set as high as it is now and there wasn’t as much pressure for people to feel truly fulfilled in their work. You went to work and you did the work. Thankfully, the thinking around leadership has evolved. Now we know different, better. We know that doing work you love matters and feeling fulfilled gives you more reason to work harder to reach that goal.

Because of this, leadership today is more about serving others than getting them to do what you want.

5 Top Benefits of Work-related Coaching

If you operate a business, then you probably think that your bottom line is your bottom line.  It is all about bringing in the profits.  It is all about delighting your customers so they will return and tell all their friends (which today may include thousands of Facebook friends, as well). So, it’s very likely that in your quest to increase sales and beef up marketing efforts, you are focusing most of your energy on just that – sales and marketing. You may also be thinking of ways to improve your product and/or customer service.  Those are all worthy goals. However, there is something important that many business leaders tend to overlook – their people.  

People are THE  key to a successful business.  Why? Because people are your direct line to the customer.  If they are not performing at their best or growing their capabilities then your business isn’t doing that either.  One solution to creating a more successful business with people bustling with productivity is to provide work-related coaching.

How does work-related coaching differ from life coaching?

Work-related coaching and life coaching may seem very similar on the surface.  Both leverage self-awareness and feedback, tend to be goal oriented and generally assume a positive outlook on individual capacity for change.  Where they differ rather significantly is in their context and purpose.