Leadership often succeeds or falls short because of seemingly small details.
Even if you are not naturally detail-oriented, paying closer attention can make the difference between an average result and an outstanding one. I know this from personal experience.
One of my clients has a simple communication rule: the senior account executive must be included on all communications relating to his or her accounts. Team members know this means copying them on emails and keeping them informed of important conversations.
Simple enough.
Conflict is inevitable in every organization.
The question isn’t whether it will occur. The question is how leaders respond when it does.
I recently had a challenging series of conversations with a tech support representative about a problem that was enormously frustrating. At one point, a supervisor kept repeating the same instruction despite my telling her that I didn’t understand what she was saying.
Her solution was to say it again. Only louder.
Team members rely on each other. When everyone follows through on their commitments, the results can be exceptional. But when one person fails to hold up his or her end of the bargain, the domino effect can be swift and damaging.
If your organization is team-based, it’s your responsibility as a leader to ensure those teams function effectively. There’s little room for prima donnas, lone rangers, or chronic slackers. No matter how talented they may be, they weaken the team when they operate in isolation or refuse to support others.
I recently led a workshop on leadership skills, during which several participants asked questions about managing people. A common theme underpinning these questions was their timidity as managers.
Several examples were related to employee entitlement and how these managers could more effectively deal with employees’ self-declared privileges.
Spring arrived a couple of weeks ago as a reminder that change is natural and timely. I think of it as an opportunity to reset. As flowers bud and days lengthen, we can translate that seasonal renewal into concrete leadership practices: reflection, realignment, and reinvigoration.
Holidays like Easter, Passover, and Ramadan deepen those themes: rebirth, liberation, and gratitude offer familiar prompts to reexamine purpose and priorities.
One of my clients suffers from executive delegation syndrome. This occurs when successful leaders can’t get out of their own way by not delegating sufficiently.
As leaders advance professionally, often into executive level functions, they can’t keep doing everything they were doing up until this point. You may have been an account executive, for example, and now you lead a department of 14 accounts executives.
One of the things that helps people make progress is to consciously think about what they know now that they didn’t know last week (month, year, etc.). Incremental knowledge – no matter how small or big it may be – accumulates and adds to your professional development.
Why not ask this question at your weekly team meetings? If you take time to have a quick round robin, you may be pleasantly surprised with what you hear.
Are you suffering from too much work, not enough time, and (heaven forbid) your employees need guidance to do their jobs?
Good news, bad news, the same news: Get used to it.