Leadership, Team Work and Leadership Development

Team Work: An Essential Skill:

Leadership requires that you are also good at leading teams and creating a team that works well together.  With the right focus you can accomplish this goal.

 

•Leadership Focus

•Leadership Intention

•Shared Vision

•Clear Communication

•Accountability Agreements

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Bullies in the Manager's Office

Bullies can be both managers and employees, but whereever they apear in our workplace, they have a negative impact on the workforce.  Bullies are detrimental to the work environment.  They use intimidation to accomplish the work. 

Business owners need to be dealt with and provided the resources to shift to a collaborative leader or asked to leave.

Bullies don’t just exist on the playground. They also sit in the manager’s chair or the CEO’s office. Bully leadership is sharp, authoritative, angry, and feels uncomfortable to those in contact with it. Bully leaders believe that they are rallying the troops, getting everyone on board. But that is not what happens. The bully leader barks out orders, threatens consequences and uses strong, harsh statements to “motivate” people to do what the leader wants.

 The “motivation” that results is limited. And that is what the "Bully Leader" doesn't realize. Bully Leaders are scary for people so they do what they need to do but there is a sacrifice. The sacrifice occurs in the work performed. People do what needs to be done and that is all. They don't go above and beyond. They don't share their knowledge and ideas with the leader. The Bully Leader wants and needs to be the one with the great ideas. They don't want to share the limelight.

 

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The Real World Leadership Institute provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.   RWL Radio is a production of the Institute.

Adjust Your Leadership Style to Employees

Leadership Styles can be set in stone or an effective leader knows that they change their style based on the employee.

Leadership is one of the biggest challenges managers face. How to be an effective leader, that effectively motivates staff to get their jobs done and with the quality of an owner.

One way to look at leadership is situational. In this model we tailor our behavior as leaders to the employee. For a new employee, the manager's behavior is very directive. We're in training mode; we give lots of information and direction. Our goal is to move an employee through several stages to a point where we are the coach and mentor, and the amount of time and direction needed from us is minimal. The employee is able to do the job well without our direction. But, we can't just jump from directive to coach. There are a couple of additional transition stages. After directing, the manager is still telling the employee what to do, but the level of telling and direction has decreased. The employee is able to do the task with some direction and feedback, versus total direction and feedback.

The third stage is one in which the leader or manager's role is one of support and motivation. The staff member is able to do the task with little intervention from the manager. The fourth stage is the goal, one in which the staff member is fully competent and empowered to do their job with the support and mentorship of the manager. In this stage the manager is the cheerleader, acknowledging accomplishments and the motivator.

Although, it would be easy to have linear maps of human behavior, this again is not the case. As the manager, you will have to move easily through the different phases and be able to step back if an employee needs more direction at some point. You also will move back to directing when a new task or job duty is assigned that the employee has never done before. At this point, a new training and mentorship cycle is started and the manager's role is to provide the support needed to move successfully through each phase of developing competence to the final stage of empowered action, in which the employee is capable of doing high quality work.

This article is based upon Hershey and Blanchard's situational leadership model, from their book: Management of organizational behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. (1982, Prentice-Hall, Inc.

14 Different LinkedIn Mistakes Leaders Executives and Managers Are Making on LinkedIn 3/15/2011 - BizologyBuzz | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio

14 Different LinkedIn Mistakes Leaders Executives and Managers Are Making on LinkedIn 3/15/2011 - BizologyBuzz | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Real World Leadership Radio: Leadership Institute, Leadership Development

The

Real World Leadership Institute

provides comprehensive leadership development resources for business leaders, their managers and their teams.  The Institute has both in-person training, mastermind and coaching programs and a comprehensive membership program that includes a monthly Leadership Symposium as well as other features.  Debora McLaughlin and Donna Price, Co-Founders of the Institute have extensive backgrounds in leadership development, executive coaching and team development, as well as strategic planning, business development and marketing.

Leadership Institute's Accountability Training Increases Team Performance

Accountability: Do You Cringe When You Hear the Word?

Do you hear the word accountability and just cringe? Does it make you think of keeping score? Well, for many that is exactly what happens. They cringe, they avoid, they walk away. But really, we all want people that are accountable in our lives and in our businesses. 

What does it mean? Accountability is taking responsibility for what you say you are going to do. It means following through. But first there are some things that have to happen in order for accountability to be all that it is cracked up to be. First, there have to be clear goals and expectations. When you have a clearly stated, measurable goal that you as the person responsible understands, then you take that goal on and take responsibility for it. When goals are unclear or wishy, washy it is impossible to be responsible for the goal but it is not trackable or measurable. For instance, if you have a business goal of improving the workplace for staff it is a totally subjective and wide open goal. It is open for interpretation and can look like many different things. What it means to you can be totally different from what it means for your peers or your boss or the owner of the company. Before you take one more step into action, you need clarity. A more clearly stated goal that you could actually implement might be: to improve the workplace by providing consistent, daily duty free lunch breaks. Now you can create a strategy for implementing this. You know that you have to create a schedule, figure out how to free people up and then you can implement. But the goal could also mean, improve the workplace by creating an action plan for each staff member with measurable goals, clearly outlined actions and weekly review meetings. This too, is measurable and actionable. But there might still be questions that you have as you start to implement.

 

That is part of your accountability responsibility: gaining clarity at the beginning of implementation and throughout. When a new question comes up, ask. Ask for clarity. A workplace that encourages accountability and expects it is one that also knows that there must be room for ongoing communication about goals and responsibilities. Staff must know from leaders that they are allowed and expected to ask for further clarification and that it in no way means that they are not being responsible or accountable. Actually, it means just the opposite. That they are!

Leaders must lead the way to accountability and responsibly by themselves showing that they are open to questions, open to providing answers and they too, at times, will need to ask for clarification or more information in order to be accountable themselves.

 

Accountability becomes a cultural norm within the workplace when individuals are given the space to take on responsibility and to expect clear communications about each task.