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Tag: teamwork (Page 1 of 3)

Leading with Humility

08/02/2023 /

Leaders are often described as powerful and headstrong individuals, certain of their position and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals or ambitions.

Recent researches have advanced  a new model for understanding and improving effective leadership: leading with humility. Scientific inquiry has shown that humility offers a significant “competitive advantage” to leaders.

Humble leaders consider their own strengths, weakness and motives in making decisions; demonstrating concern for the common good, and exercising their influence for the benefit of all.

Managers who exhibit traits of humility resulted in better employee engagement and job performance.

In this article, Gwen Moran explains how to use humility to be more effective in the following 6 ways:

1) Be open to others’ opinions;
2) Tend to others’ needs;
3) Admit mistakes;
4) Accept ambiguity;
5) Self – reflect;
6) Let people do their jobs.
FullSizeRender
Image source: Flickr – (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Tom Simpson

 

7 Tips for better leadership

19/02/2020 /

What makes you a leader is not a title but your attitude and your actions. Leadership is about how you interact with people and how you motivate them to work with you toward a goal together.

In this article you’ll find practical tips to improve your leadership:

  1. Value every relationship: there’s a person behind every job title. You have the chance to influence him/her by the way you interact with every team member.
  2. Think about your team’s needs before your own: Thinking about your team’s needs could be as simple as saying thank you or as serious as making a trip to the hospital after hours.
  3. Help your team grow: Provide training and opportunities for them to work at their full potential. Encourage and sponsor continuing education.
  4. Share the credit: Make your team look good. Give them the spotlight and let them shine.
  5. Shoulder the blame: If you and your team fail to meet a goal or a project doesn’t go as well as planned, the blame stops with you. If you need to give feedback to people about their performance, do so privately.
  6. Never say that’s not my job: Help with what needs to be done, even if it’s not your responsibility. Even when nobody’s watching.
  7. Be a person of character: Leadership is less about skills and more about living by your values. Your team certainly doesn’t want to follow a leader they can’t trust. Respect takes a long time to earn and a second to lose.

Image: Pixabay – rawpixel (CC Creative Commons)

15 Best Books to improve your leadership

23/10/2019 /

In an article  published on Lifehack, Joe Vennare identifies some 15 best books especially would-be leaders need to read to define leadership and how to apply it, to communicate and motivate teamwork, and to keep going on.

According to John Coleman, ‘broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders’. Reading has shown to lead many benefits in leadership development.  It improves communication, emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness and reduces stress.

Nowadays business people seems to be reading less. Sometimes because they are not sufficiently convinced of the importance of reading. In other cases because they don’t know what they should read or  they think they don’t have the time.

 

Image source: Pixabay (CC0)

10 Tips for Better Teamwork

06/02/2019 /

Effective teamwork is both profoundly simple and difficult at the same time. It’s not always the task at hand that challenges teams in their progress, it’s the relationships and the little things that happen day-to-day. According to this article, teams have basic needs that must be acknowledged and fulfilled if you expect your teams to experience their greatest success.

The following  ten tips describe the environment that must occur within the team for successful teamwork to take place:

  1. The team understands the goals and is committed to attaining them. This clear direction and agreement on mission and purpose is essential for effective teamwork.
  2. Team members trust each other. The team creates an environment in which people are comfortable taking reasonable risks in communicating, advocating positions, and taking action.
  3. Communication is open, honest, and respectful. People feel free to express their thoughts, opinions, and potential solutions to problems.
  4. Team members have a strong sense of belonging to the group. They experience a deep commitment to the group’s decisions and actions.
  5. Team members are viewed as unique people with irreplaceable experiences, points of view, knowledge, and opinions to contribute.
  6. Creativity, innovation, and different viewpoints are expected and encouraged.
  7. The team is able to constantly examine itself and continuously improve its processes, practices, and the interaction of team members. The team openly discusses team norms and what may be hindering its ability to move forward and progress in areas of effort, talent, and strategy.
  8. The team has agreed upon procedures for diagnosing, analyzing, and resolving teamwork problems and conflicts. The team does not support member personality conflicts and clashes nor do team members pick sides in a disagreement.
  9. Participative leadership is practiced in leading meetings, assigning tasks, recording decisions and commitments, assessing progress, holding team members accountable, and providing direction for the team.
  10. Members of the team make high quality decisions together and have the support and commitment of the group to carry out the decisions made.

 

Imagine: Flickr – U.S. Pacific Fleet  (CC BY-NC 2.0)

How to raise successful kids (or business colleagues) without over-parenting

31/10/2018 /

Though this TED talk suggestion may seem rather strange for a blog focusing on leadership and business skills development, it actually gives us an important message about how to accompany other along a path of growth by adopting an encouraging rather than punitive attitude. Julie Lythcott- Haims reminds parents (but leaders and managers too!) that there are many ways of reprimanding a person and some are much more fruitful than others in actually determining a change in the other person’s behavior.

Another important message is this: managers should always be on the lookout for situations they can learn from. In fact, some of the most important lessons often spring from situations which have nothing to do with the business environment!

 

 

Inspired by Ratan Tata

04/04/2018 /

Ratan Naval Tata (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian businessman, industrial and  philanthropist of great success. He is much more than just the former chairman of the global business conglomerate Tata Sons, indeed his world famous personality and his success story have inspired millions of people.

Here is a look back at a selection of his most inspiring words that will help you set your goals and motivate yourself.

1. “Don’t educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy. So when they grow up they will know the value of things, not the price.”

2. “Eat your food as your medicines. Otherwise you have to eat your medicines as your food.”

3. ” The One who loves you will never leave you because even if there are hundreds reasons to give up he/she will find one reason to hold on.”

4. ” There is a lot of difference between human being and being human. A Few understand it.”

5. “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.”

6. ” You are loved when your are born. You will be loved when you die. In between you have to manage…!”

7. “Six best doctors in the world:

  • Sunlight
  • Rest
  • Exercise
  • Diet
  • Self Confidence
  • Friends

Maintain them in all stages of life and enjoy healthy life”

Image source: Wikimedia common (public domain)

10 Challenges When You Are In Charge

19/07/2017 /

Jacob Shriar on the Blog business2community highlights the 10 main challenges you will face when you are assigned to a managerial position.

It can be tough to adjust to this new role and potentially new environment, the first piece of advice is to understand that it’s normal to be nervous.

Here are 10 challenges that you will face to motivate the employees under you:

  1. Failure to Set Clear Goals and Expectations.
  2. Poor Time Management.
  3. Unclear or Inconsistent Communication.
  4. Pressure To Perform.
  5. Shifting From Coworker To Boss.
  6. Hiring.
  7. Firing.
  8. Solving Other People’s Problems.
  9. Getting The Team To Be Productive.
  10. Not Asking For Help.

The key is to change your mindset and get into a new way of approaching work.

Read the entire article here

Image source: Pixabay (CC0)

Seven steps for effective problem solving in the workplace

21/07/2016 /

Ask anyone in the workplace if problem solving is part of their day and they’d certainly answer “Yes!”. But how many of us have had training in problem solving?

Because people are born problem solvers, the biggest challenge is to overcome the tendency to immediately came up with a solution. The most common mistake in problem solving is to put the solution at the beginning of the process, when what we need is a solution at the end of the process.

Here are seven-steps for an effective problem-solving process.

  1. Identify the issues
  2. Understand everyone’s interests
  3. List the possible solutions (options)
  4. Evaluate the options
  5. Select an option or options
  6. Document the agreements(s)
  7. Agree on contingencies, monitoring, and evaluation

Read the article written by Tim Hicks

Problem solving

Image source: Flickr – pierpeter (CC-BY-NC 2.0)

 

 

 

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