We deal with losses in the workplace all the time. We lose new opportunities and established business. We lose employees. We lose momentum. We lose market share.
When leaders deal with these losses, they often view them tactically. They evaluate the immediate impact, come to conclusions, and move on. They don’t necessarily think deeply about how the immediate impact affects the long term.
I’ve been working with a leadership team where three out of four people are aligned around organizational goals, while the fourth is singing to the tune of his own agenda.
Although this leader is valued in his role, if he doesn’t work to achieve alignment with his colleagues, over time it will infect the leadership team.
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?
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.
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.
No one has a crystal ball to the answer to this question, in fact, economists seem to be all over the map in terms of their predictions. Since the outlook is uncertain, leaders need to use their best information and insights to decide how economic conditions will impact their organizations.
Your business strategy will determine decisions you make in terms of growth in 2023, but as important is to understand how the undercurrent of this uncertainty affects your employees. Here are three key factors that are on their minds: