May Recommended Reading

Effective leadership depends on emotional intelligence

From Harvey Schachter: “Much attention has been paid to the emotional intelligence of managers. But in an era of teams, what about folks who take a leadership roles in groups, often because they are a technical whiz?”

Read the rest of Effective leadership depends on emotional intelligence

How to Seriously Motivate People

From The Corner Office by Steve Tobak: “The vast majority of workplace problems are actually management problems. While that statement was meant to be about improving quality, to me, it’s always had a broader meaning.  I’ve always thought of it as an axiom for improving all kinds of management and organizational systems… including how to motivate employees.”

Read more about How to Seriously Motivate People

10 Online To Do List Manager Solutions to Get Things Done

From Work Awesome: “Cloud-based task managers are becoming more compelling and practical every day. It’s not uncommon for employees to spend their professional and personal time between three computers: a laptop, work desktop and home desktop. Throw an iPhone or Blackberry into the mix, and synchronization across all of these devices becomes an unwieldy engineering project. There has to be a better way.”

See the 10 Online To Do List Manager Solutions to Get Things Done

How to Improve Your Public Speaking by Practicing Out Loud

From Michael Hyatt: “I came away from the Dynamic Communicators Workshop with numerous action items. However, the one that had the single biggest immediate impact was this:  Before you give a speech, practice it out loud, on your feet, as though you were in front of a live audience.  I know, that probably doesn’t sound too revolutionary. But for some reason, I had unconsciously come to the conclusion that I didn’t need to do this. Boy, was I wrong.”

Read the rest of How to Improve Your Public Speaking by Practicing Out Loud

 

April recommended reading

3 Steps To Managing Workplace Conflict With Emotional Intelligence

From OPEN Forum: “No matter how great a corporate culture you create, no matter how good a role model you are, it’s inevitable that situations will arise that require you to mitigate emotional stress within the ranks. Personal conflicts, outside pressures, and job-related stress will eventually become a factor to be dealt with in any workplace setting. How well leaders handle those situations depends on their emotional intelligence…”

Read the rest of 3 Steps To Managing Workplace Conflict With Emotional Intelligence

The Five Levels of Delegation

From Michael Hyatt: “Delegation is critical to leadership. You can’t take on more responsibility unless you are willing to delegate to others. But that doesn’t mean it is always easy…”

Read about The Five Levels of Delegation

Leading From Your Strengths

From Growing Leaders: “A while back, I got to meet one of my favorite authors. Marcus Buckingham was speaking in Atlanta, and I was fortunate enough to connect with him for a few moments backstage, thanks to a little help from a few friends. Marcus is the bestselling author of First Break All the Rules, and Now Discover Your Strengths. His latest book is entitled, The One Thing You Need to Know. He is a remarkable communicator whose message is revolutionary. Let me summarize what he spoke about that morning…”

Read the rest of Leading From Your Strengths

Saying Yes to Time Management

From Working Girl: “I’m a people pleaser. If someone needs help, a ride, advice, an errand, a favor…they usually come to me – mostly because they know I’ll say yes.

You see, saying no has never been one of my fortes. The art of saying no in the workplace is especially hard for me since I’m not the gal in charge.”

Read the rest of Saying Yes to Time Management

 

January recommended reading

Why Your Business Needs a Big Idea

From Gallo Communications: “As small businesses around the country plan for 2011, many are focused on simply surviving. What’s lost is the big idea. Your business needs a moon shot goal that will fuel its journey for the next decade and inspire your employees, your partners, and you.”

Read the rest of Why Your Business Needs a Big Idea

How to Conquer Your Fear and Self-Doubt

From The Corner Office by Steve Tobak: “Whether you suffer from an irrational fear of public speaking, are plagued by enormous stress at work, live in mortal terror of screwing up or getting fired, or, more to the point, are a highly competent and accomplished professional who, deep inside, suffers from debilitating doubts and fears, there are three things you all have in common…”

Read the rest of How to Conquer Your Fear and Self-Doubt

Email Etiquette for the Super-Busy

From The 99%: “It’s time for a more mindful approach [to email], one that fully embraces a “less is more” strategy. To help you get started, we’ve assembled a cheat sheet of our email best practices. And, trust us, it’s not just about being more polite, it’s about being more efficient and getting the responses you need.”

Read the rest of Email Etiquette for the Super-Busy

44 Actions You Can Take Now to Boost Your Energy

From Michael Hyatt: “Recently, just for the fun of it, I started making a list of all the things that energize me. I started out with a list of 10. Then it grew to 20, 30, then 40, and now, 44. But I am certain I have only just begun.”

Read 44 Actions You Can Take Now to Boost Your Energy

Richard St. John’s 8 secrets of success

A short video from TED: “Why do people succeed? Is it because they’re smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.”

Watch Richard St. John’s 8 secrets of success

Overcoming the Fear of Change

From the Gallup Management Journal: “For more than 20 years, David Jones has consulted with some of America’s biggest companies — including Ameritrade, Bon Secours Health System, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield — introducing and directing change. Assessing the potential of a change is one of the hardest, and most important, parts of a leader’s job, says Jones.”

Read the rest of Overcoming the Fear of Change

 

Investing in team building pays off

 

Photo by University of Exeter

 

Let me tell you a story about two teams I worked on.  Both teams were made up of a few analysts from across the company.  Both teams were given the same goal: improve a few templates that the analysts used in their work.  Ultimately, one team was much more productive than the other.

 

Recommended reading from September

Photo by Nufkin

If you haven’t already seen these six great articles on leadership and teams, I highly recommend them.  Each one is a quick read.

Who Says There is No ‘I’ in TEAM?

From Super Successful Manager: “Valuing the individual strengths, skills and experiences of every one of those in a team, can generate exceptional results.  Why?  Because a skilled leader can realize where best to focus key activities in their team.”

The Urban Legend of the Great Goal Study

From Three Star Leadership Blog: “Researchers surveyed the graduating seniors from the class of 1953 at Yale University. They asked if the class members had written goals for their future. Three percent did. The rest did not…  The only problem with this powerful finding is that there was no such study. Researchers at Yale and members of the class of 1953 all swear they never conducted or participated in a study like that.”

3 Important tips to help you destroy trust, but still make you feel like you are leading people

From Teamwork and Leadership Bloggings: “Do you want to destroy the trust of those you lead, but still feel like a leader? Well, I have three suggestions to help you get there sooner than later. Most leaders do one or all of these so I thought it might be helpful to pass them on in case you weren’t aware of some of them and needed some help.”

A Manager’s Skill – Balancing Fun and Focus

From Coach Train Learn: “Having fun is a vital component of any successful team. Managers will do well to encourage their people to enjoy their work, joining in when there’s a laugh to be had, where appropriate.”

Personality Poker

From 800 CEO Read: “You’ve got your own personality that helps or hinders others. And soon enough, it can be clear to see that work is not just about the tasks we do, but how we do them, how we internalize and understand our interactions with others, and how our reactions can change the path our work takes – for better or worse.”

What Makes a Great Team Member?

From Leadership Buzz: “I’ve learned from clients the best team members share common characteristics in both the ‘skill’ and the ‘will’ areas.  A common mistake leaders make when hiring is overemphasizing the need for skill and skill alone.”

 

Warning: Your team can’t act on hazy goals

Quick intro: this is one in a series about SMART goals.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”  – Lewis Carroll

Photo by gemsling

Imagine this scenario for a moment.  Your boss sends you an email on Friday night, just as she’s leaving for a two week vacation.  You don’t get the message until Monday morning, when she’s already in the Maldives.  All the email says is, “Your next assignment is to improve employee engagement.”

What do you do with this hazy goal?  You’d like to ask your leader for more details, but she can’t be reached.  Your mind reader doesn’t work over long distances.  What are the chances of meeting your leader’s expectations on this new assignment?  You have plenty of other tasks you’re already working on.  Should you drop them all and dive into this new one?  Maybe you should update your resume instead.  Or take a nap.

This scenario doesn’t feel good, does it?

Your first job as a leader is to help the team envision their goal.  That means giving them a detailed, focused picture of what they should achieve.