In her new book Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring, Deb Boelkes lays out the path to leading with the heart. Full of real stories and lessons from top heartfelt executives, the book will help you learn to transform from a person people follow because they have to, to one they want to follow. One lesson that really stood out to us comes from … [Read more...]
How to Master the Art of Respectful Truth-Telling
Most people have suppressed their true feelings to avoid conflict at work. “When you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, it’s best to be prepared,” says Jackie Gaines, Wearing the Yellow Suit: A Guide for Women in Leadership “Having an idea of the actual words you plan to use ahead of time makes the experience easier and will help you feel calm and in control … [Read more...]
Flex Your Style to Build Your Team
Building a high-performing team is a complicated thing to do. There is no single formula or strategy for doing it. The number of combinations of personality dynamics, business demands, economic situations and other variables affecting your team is probably too long to fully describe. Despite the complexity and number of variables, there some principles and ideas you can rely on … [Read more...]
How Do Your Employees Feel About Returning to Work?
For many organizations, the new norm is work from home, and for many managers and employees, there is a great deal of uncertainty about if and when they will return to an office or on-site location. If you are one of them, your transition back to the office may be completely out of your hands, but one very critical role you can play is communicating with your employees to … [Read more...]
How to Keep a Conflict From Escalating
When I work with clients, I often see judgment driving much of the thinking during a conflict conversation. Rather than a genuine curiosity for understanding where the other person is coming from, one or both people judge the other person's intentions. Here's how I see the difference between these two attitudes: An attitude of judgment says: “They're trying to take … [Read more...]
Focus Your Employees on What’s Important Right Now
For years I've asked people, "What's the good word today?" My intention always was to get people thinking about something positive, and if they were thinking something positive, to share it with me so I could benefit too. Unfortunately far too often people can't come up with a good word, or in many cases, a word at all. Hearing negative feedback isn't easy, especially for … [Read more...]
Encourage Employees to Take More Initiative
Empowerment is a great thing, especially during times of change, upheaval and disruption. Empowered employees show greater commitment, stay more engaged, and create better results. Empowered employees take more initiative and get more done than employees who work in a fear-based, command-and-control environment. As a new supervisor, you hear and read about these … [Read more...]
How to Talk to an Angry Person
Emotions are running high, and people seemingly get angry for no reason. If you’re like most of the people, you managing someone's emotional outburst is the last thing you one to do. While some people seem to have a knack for helping others “back off the edge,” most people feel at least a little bit nervous or apprehensive about such situations, especially new managers who have … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Recognize Remote Employees
It's not groundbreaking news that employees want to be recognized for their hard work. Nor is it surprising that employees' performance, attitude and job loyalty tend to improve when they feel valued at work. Be honest: How well are you performing at recognizing your employees' efforts in recent weeks? Most of our lives have been turned, at least a little, upside down … [Read more...]
How to Step Up and Lead Strong in Uncertain Times
This is a guest post by Tamara Ghandour, keynote speaker and adviser. Recent events around COVID-19 have turned most of our worlds upside down. The situation is rapidly evolving, leaving most people with a sense of uncertainty around how everything will play out, in the short and long-term. That uncertainty leads to stress, decreasing productivity, and quality of … [Read more...]