Make Your Goals SMART

How To Coach Rather Than Supervise Employees

Bill Berman and George Bradt , authors of the book, Influence and Impact , explain the importance of helping your employees to understand what their jobs entails, and what the culture expects, so they can do the work you need from them the most. More importantly, they say that it is better for you as a leader to coach employees rather than supervise them. And, as you coach, they recommend you: Ensure the employee fully understands their job responsibilities. Pave the way for the employee to be successful. Given them the time, resources and encouragement they will need. Help them know themselves better. Consider a personality assessment by a trained evaluator so they understand their styles and preferences. Help them know the business. Ensure they know the organization’s mission, vision and purpose, business strategies and cultural norms. Help them know you. Help them to really understand what you really need from them to make you and the organization successful. Help them know

How To Break Through Barriers And Up Your Success

Daphne E. Jones is the author of, Win When They Say You Won’t . She’s also a corporate board member who has held CIO and other leadership positions at Fortune 500 companies including IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Hospira (now Pfizer) and General Electric. She defied everyone’s expectations by adopting a mindset she recommends to everyone: Believe you can win, when they say you won’t . Drawn from her own rags to riches story, Win when They Say You Won’t: Break Through Barriers and Keep Leveling Up Your Success , is Jones’ highly reflective, deeply personal, inspiring guide and playbook to help readers achieve the career of their dreams with a winning mindset. Jones shows how the right mindset and toolset can help you overcome anyone who doubts your potential for any reason. She shares tools to treat these issues as a business problem rather than getting caught in the trap of responding only emotionally or without a strategy. Daphne E. Jones Using her stories and those of ot

How Compassionate Leaders Deliver Results

“Putting people first and delivering results are not two separate goals,” according to the book, The Double Bottom Line . “Rather, a strong focus on people drives strong results, creating the double bottom line,” adds author Donato Tramuto (with Tami Booth Corwin). Tramuto's findings are based on decades of experience, numerous studies, original qualitative research of 1,500 participants, and in-depth interviews with nearly 40 successful leaders who practice compassionate leadership. “Research reveals that most leaders have an innate desire to be compassionate, but many don’t know how to put it into practice,” adds Tramuto. The Double Bottom Line defines compassionate leadership as: Listening to others’ challenges, needs, or problems, having empathy for them and then actually doing something about it. Additionally, where empathy is the ability to think about and feel for another person’s problems, suffering, or experience. And, where compassion , on the other hand,

How To Harness Your Experiential Intelligence

“Experiential Intelligence provides a new lens from which to view what makes you, you—and what makes your team and organization unique,” says Soren Kaplan , author of the new book, Experiential Intelligence . Kaplan explains that over 100 years ago, we established IQ (Intelligence Quotient) to predict success. Then we explored Emotional Intelligence (EQ), the theory of multiple intelligences, and mindsets that broaden the definition of smarts. “Today, Experiential Intelligence ( XQ ) expands our understanding of what's needed to thrive in a disruptive world. While you can't change the past, your unique experiences and stories contain hidden strengths and untapped potential for the future,” explains Kaplan. Experiential Intelligence is the combination of mindsets, abilities, and know-how gained from your unique life experiences that empowers you to achieve your goals. It allows you to get in touch with the accumulated wisdom and talents you have gained over tim

How To Use Failure As A Way To Success

“On the path to success, we trip and lose our footing from time to time. But stumbling and even falling is the best way to learn from mistakes and is critical to achieving goals,” says Bill Wooditch , author of the book, Fail More: Embrace, Learn, And, Adapt to Failure As A Way To Success . “We all fail. It’s a part of business, and it’s a part of life,” explains Wooditch. “It’s how you deal with setbacks is what makes the difference.” The book will teach you how to: Conquer the negative emotions that naturally arise after making mistakes. Clearly articulate lessons learned. Put these lessons to use immediately. Plus, you’ll learn how to: Navigate all forms of rejection and failure in pragmatic ways. Rationally examine your personal fears and gain mastery over them. Shed the discomfort of uncertainty, which is the only way to open your mind to all possibilities. Recently, Wooditch answered these questions for me about failing, succeeding and his book: Question : We are often taugh

My Best Boss Did This

In their book, Rapid Realignment , authors George Labovitz and Victor Rosansky , reveal the most common responses from thousands of managers and workers when they were asked to think of the best boss they ever had, and then answer the question: " What did that person do to qualify as your best boss ?" And, those most common responses were : My best boss listened! My best boss backed me up. My best boss trusted me and respected me. My best boss gave me feedback. My best boss left me alone. What else would you add to this list?

The Definition Of Meaningful Work

There are so many good things to learn in the book, Helping People Win At Work , by Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge . Among those is the section about how to define meaningful work . Their definition consists of these seven attributes. Work is meaningful when it : It is conducted in a manner that is "good and proper" in all respects. It positively affects our company and our communities, giving our work an impact that extends beyond ourselves. It provides learning and growth, offers challenges, requires creativity, pushes us to surpass limits, and creates exciting results. It provides recognition and rewards for our achievements. It allows us to succeed as a team while excelling as individuals. It allows us to enjoy the ride, bringing humor and fun into our work. It fuels passion!

How To Find What You Love, And Love What You Do

Do you have a chance to play to your strengths every day? Were you excited to go to work every day last week? How you answer these two questions will determine if you are more likely to be successful, resilient, and engaged at work – and likely to do something great in your life by taking seriously what you love and expressing it in some sort of productive way. This is what bestselling author, Marcus Buckingham , explains in his book, Love + Work . “You've long been told to ‘Do what you love,’ shares Buckingham. “Sounds simple, but the real challenge is how to do this in a world not set up to help you. Most of us actually don't know the real truth of what we love—what engages us and makes us thrive—and our workplaces, jobs, schools, even our parents, are focused instead on making us conform. Sadly, no person or system is dedicated to discovering the crucial intersection between what you love to do and how you contribute it to others,” declares Buckingham. Therefore, the

Don't Spin Your Team In Circles

A manager who can't make a decision or who can't make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager's team. Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles , slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision. Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a "wrong" decision. These managers don't necessarily request needless data, but simply just never decide. Successful managers gather the data from their employees, make any truly necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision...knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white "right or "wrong," but are the best decisions made at that time fo

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

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