How prepared are you for the unexpected. “Life happens” – and doesn’t it always seem to do so at the most inopportune times?
You can perfectly plan your schedule, and then life inserts itself, throws you off base, and leaves you bewildered about how this could have happened when you were so well organized.
Are you ever puzzled that some people think that they communicate well when they are ambiguous at best? Some leaders leave a lot unsaid and yet still expect their people to know what they didn’t say.
The challenge with this is that these people don’t even realize that they’re not verbalizing their thoughts. They may think they have, but they haven’t.
Management successions occur every day in organizations around the world. These range from promotions to first level supervisors to appointments of new CEOs.
A person who is new in the job and immediately proclaims, “This is how it’s going to be now” will face resistance on multiple levels, while the person who steps in and listens will be received quite differently.
How do you handle the weak links on your staff? My guess is that in most cases you wait too long to take appropriate action. No matter what your experience is, it’s human to avoid conflict, and weak links are, de facto, conflicts.
You know the basics: can the employee improve from skills training? Would the person be a better fit in another department in the organization? Can the person benefit from one-on-one mentoring?
One managerial flaw that reinforces a “no win” scenario pertains to encouraging the people who always say “yes” when asked to go above and beyond.
Let’s be clear: this is not a criticism of those who contribute generously by doing more work. Rather, this is a warning about employees who automatically say yes to everything and eventually become choked.
Two months of the year have whooshed away and before too much more time passes, it’s worth taking time to look at what you’ve accomplished so far this year.
Are you on track? Are you pacing the way you expected late last year when you finalized your plan for 2023? What has changed and how are you accommodating those changes?
There are days when so much is going on that everything seems blurry. When this happens in the workplace, people can get distracted by the dangerous combination of chaos and minutia and miss important things. Lack of clarity can lead to one big blur.
When this happens to you, it’s important to regain focus and clarity as soon as possible.
Sorry managers, but training employees is not just a necessary part of your job, it’s essential. Employees may go through corporate training programs to learn the basics of their jobs, but knowing the basics isn’t enough to succeed.
Managers often complain about how much time it takes their people to get up to speed. When I begin asking questions, inevitably it’s clear that no one is shepherding these people through what they need to learn.
CEOs who aspire to spectacular growth have expectations of nothing short of exceptional results from their leaders. They rally these leaders with optimistic views of the future and eyes on the rewards that will be given for achieving KPIs and other metrics.
Strong leaders take the nod and push their departments forward with similar focus. The drive for growth is pushed down through the organization where outstanding results are expected consistently.
Sometimes leaders make decisions that impact clients that may also inadvertently have a negative ripple effect on your employees. For example, you could change policies, terms of service, pricing, or even account executives.
Those are perfectly justified decisions. But sometimes your clients may resist the change and take it out on your staff. They may resent the changes and instead of discussing it with leadership, they display negative or passive aggressive behavior with your employees.