Category: Management

When people in the team are empowered to speak openly, the feeling that their thoughts, ideas and concerns matter makes them feel valued and respected which builds a sense of connection and inclusion, makes them feel capable of influencing decisions and enhances their confidence to participate actively.

Leadership / Management

How to Get Your Team to Actually Speak Up

When you ask your team to share their ideas, thoughts, suggestions, or feedback, how many of them actually speak up? Do they share what you want to hear or what they’re actually thinking in their heads? Getting your team to voice their true ideas and opinions is important because not knowing what they’re thinking can lead to confusion, misalignment of expectations and misunderstandings. Not speaking up also leads to groupthink―people in the team conform to dominant opinions without questioning their validity. Mistakes that could have been flagged early go unnoticed. Critical insights and alternative solutions are missed.

Toxic productivity—mindset to prioritize work to an unhealthy extent at the expense of mental health and personal well-being—can lead to burnout, stress, anxiety and a diminished sense of efficacy. Relentless performance can turn into an obsession with busyness—feeling the need to constantly do something, working long hours without taking breaks and ignoring the need to relax and rest.

Leadership / Management

Managers Stop Promoting Toxic Productivity 

Productivity can easily be exploited at work. Managers may ask their team to stay late, work on weekends and prioritize work over personal commitments and other priorities in life. They may tell their team that they need to work harder, that they aren’t doing enough. They may tell them in order to be productive they need to spend more time at work. Toxic productivity—mindset to prioritize work to an unhealthy extent at the expense of mental health and personal well-being—can lead to burnout, stress, anxiety and a diminished sense of efficacy.

Not sharing constructive criticism with high performers prevents them from improving in areas where there is potential for growth. Denying them these improvements prevents them from reaching even bigger and better goals.

Leadership / Management

How to Give Feedback to High Performers on Your Team

No one is perfect and that applies to high performers on your team too. They may be doing excellent work or exceeding your expectations, but that doesn’t make them flawless or leave them with no room for improvement or areas of growth. Occasionally telling them how great they’re doing does not inspire, motivate or challenge them to do better. Rather, lack of clarity on development and growth areas can make them repeat behaviors that prevent them from reaching for their true potential.

A leader’s job is tough. From defining the direction in which the company should be headed, making tough decisions, dealing with uncertainty to focusing on hiring the right talent, creating a culture of trust and respect, and building a highly performant team, they are expected to excel in everything. Fulfiling these responsibilties requires building a crucial set of skills.

Leadership / Management

5 Essential Leadership Skills and How to Build Them

A leader’s job is tough. From defining the direction in which the company should be headed, making tough decisions, dealing with uncertainty to focusing on hiring the right talent, creating a culture of trust and respect, and building a highly performant team, they are expected to excel in everything. They are constantly challenged to guide, advise and lead their teams to excellence. They’re required to navigate uncharted territory. Playing safe or doing ordinary things doesn’t fit their profile. They’re required to find solutions others didn’t know existed. Meeting these expectations isn’t always easy.

One-on-one meetings are fundamental to build a high performance team that can scale to meet business needs and contribute to an organization’s growth. Not having these discussions is definitely bad, but it’s even worse when these meetings leave people feeling confused, overwhelmed or agitated because their managers are either unprepared or don’t know how to run them well.

Leadership / Management

5 Practices for Effective One-on-One Meetings

One-on-one meetings are fundamental to build a high performance team that can scale to meet business needs and contribute to an organization’s growth. Most managers understand the importance of these meetings and yet they either deprioritize them or run them ad hoc without proper planning or paying attention to their effectiveness. Not having these discussions is definitely bad, but it’s even worse when these meetings leave people feeling confused, overwhelmed or agitated because their managers are either unprepared or don’t know how to run them well.

How do you know if your behavior is helpful or harmful to your people? Even with the best intentions at heart, you may end up doing more damage than good. But good intentions don’t always translate into the right behaviors and practices. You may unintentionally act in ways that get in the way of your team’s learning and growth.

Leadership / Management

5 Well-Intentioned Behaviors That Can Hurt Your Team

How do you know if your behavior is helpful or harmful to your people? Even with the best intentions at heart, you may end up doing more damage than good. You may put people first, care about them and try to ensure they get the best environment to do well and unlock their hidden potential. But good intentions don’t always translate into the right behaviors and practices. You may unintentionally act in ways that get in the way of your team’s learning and growth.

A good strategy needs an excellent team to execute and manager’s that don’t pay attention to their team’s execution speed end up with mediocre performance and wasted potential. Elaborate plans are of no use if a team does not know how to put them to use.

Leadership / Management

How to Increase Your Team’s Execution Speed

What do most managers do when their team fails to keep up with their commitments or is not able to meet promised delivery timelines? They look for external reasons or causes to assign blame and justify why things didn’t end up the way they expected. Attributing a team’s failure to things beyond control and refusing to take responsibility prevents these managers from understanding the real hurdles that get in the way of their team’s execution and performance. A good strategy needs an excellent team to execute and managers that don’t pay attention to their team’s execution speed end up with mediocre performance and wasted potential.

Leaders aren’t perfect—they make mistakes all the time. Some mistakes are costly to business while others directly impact a team's productivity and performance. #leadershipmistakes #poorleadership #costlymistakes #businessimpact #leadershipdevelopment #ineffectiveleaders #toxicleaders #avoidthesemistakes #careforyourteam #growyourteam #highperformanceteam

Leadership / Management

7 Leadership Mistakes That Limit Team’s Growth

Leaders aren’t perfect—they make mistakes all the time. Some mistakes are costly to business while others directly impact a team’s productivity and performance. Business related mistakes don’t go unnoticed—they’re highly visible, discussed at great lengths and much attention is given to how to prevent such mistakes from happening again. Mistakes that concern the team’s growth though are hardly discussed or given proper attention. These hidden and often invisible mistakes not only limit a team’s growth, but also impact business outcomes.

Many things can sap your team’s morale at work. Instead of blaming your team for not achieving the targets or berating them for wasting their potential, work on fixing their morale and everything else will fall into place. Here are the five practices to keep your team's morale high.

Leadership / Management

How to Keep Your Team’s Morale High

A team’s performance isn’t solely based on the talent of its members. Multiple other factors—motivation, desire and confidence—play a role in it. High morale in a team turns obstacles into opportunities, gives them courage to stay resilient in the face of challenges and inspires them to learn, grow and succeed. It makes magic possible by turning impossibilities into possibilities. Keeping your team’s spirits high takes work, but it will be one of the best investments of your time and energy. Done right, it will be your biggest ROI. Many things can sap your team’s morale at work. Instead of blaming your team for not achieving the targets or berating them for wasting their potential, work on fixing their morale and everything else will fall into place.

Most managers are too busy playing a catch up game—handling unexpected issues, calendars filled with meetings and pacifying unhappy stakeholders—that they fail to pay attention to harmful practices and mistakes that hurt their team’s productivity and performance.

Leadership / Management

Good Managers Don’t Make These Mistakes

All managers make mistakes. However, some mistakes are not only avoidable, they’re costly to business and hinder team’s development and growth. Most managers are too busy playing a catch up game—handling unexpected issues, calendars filled with meetings and pacifying unhappy stakeholders—that they fail to pay attention to harmful practices that hurt their team’s productivity and performance. To break unhealthy patterns of thinking and acting, managers need to pay special attention to how they communicate, collaborate and get work done. In particular, they must pay attention to five critical mistakes that other good managers don’t make.

Ego is a destructive force for leaders because it not only impacts the way they think, but also how they act. Left unchecked, ego can make them turn down great opportunities, punish those who disagree with them and stick to outdated beliefs that no longer serve them well.

Leadership / Management

4 Ways to Keep Your Ego in Check as a Leader

Ego is our biggest enemy. It not only makes us blind to our flaws and imperfections, it magnifies our desire to be right and prove others wrong. Unlike threats in our environment that we can instantly feel and pay attention to, ego is hidden deep within our subconscious. When we react to other people, we often don’t realize that it’s our ego that has hijacked our mind and is making us act in self-destructive ways. While ego is harmful to everyone, it is the most dangerous thing in a leader. It compromises their ability to think clearly, makes them rigid to their ideas and beliefs and prevents them from staying closer to reality.

If your team is underperforming, stop pointing fingers and try to identify what might be causing it. Blaming, shaming or scolding people won’t fix the problem. It won’t turn your team around. Rather, being offensive or rude in such situations will demotivate your team and make them perform even worse.

Leadership / Management

5 Causes of Underperforming Teams

Dealing with an underperforming team can be quite overwhelming if you don’t understand what’s causing subpar performance in the first place. Without knowing the root cause, any strategies you apply to tackle poor performance will be ineffective—they will only make you feel defeated, discouraged and let down. Blaming, shaming or scolding people won’t fix the problem. It won’t turn your team around. Rather, being offensive or rude in such situations will demotivate your team and make them perform even worse.

It doesn’t matter how smart, capable or intelligent you are. Navigating the challenges and unknowns as a leader requires a basic skill—curiosity. You’ve to be open to the idea of improvement. You have to differentiate between behaviors that push your team to the ground and those that lift them up. A great way to do this is a quarterly self-reflection exercise to take a fresh look at your leadership style.

Leadership / Management

Ask These 10 Questions to Take a Fresh Look at Your Leadership Style

Higher up in the hierarchy you go, the bigger are the problems you need to face. Not only do you need to deal with complexity, what others expect from you goes up as well. It’s also lonely at the top, which means there’s less feedback on how you’re doing and what you can do to improve. This is where most leaders go wrong. Instead of paying attention to their leadership style, they pack their schedules with meetings and run with a long list of things to do.

False urgency culture in an organization misleads employees by keeping them super busy, stressed and anxious without doing impactful work or creating any value. Here are the 5 strategies to root out false urgency culture in your organization.

Leadership / Management

How to Combat a Culture of False Urgency at Work

Some leaders ruthlessly prioritize to ensure important work is not compromised at the cost of urgent actions. Other leaders treat every request as a priority and don’t pay attention to how much something deserves their attention. Attaching a heightened sense of urgency to every request makes it difficult for their teams to get any meaningful work done. Jumping from one task to another and being in a constant state of overwhelm and reactivity can drain team energy, increase stress and can even lead to burnout.

You can’t get employees buy-in by enforcing change. You can’t let them play a guessing game. To lead through change, you have to be on top of your communication game. Here are the 5 strategies that work extremely well to lead effectively through change.

Leadership / Management

How to Lead Through Change

Change is necessary to adapt, innovate and move ahead with the changing times. Organizations that don’t embrace change and stick to the status quo are often left behind. When leading through change, leaders have to face many obstacles, but the biggest bottleneck isn’t the challenges along the way, it’s how change is presented and communicated to employees. There’s too much focus on strategy, execution and operational excellence and too little on ensuring effective communication. Communication which is the key driver of ensuring a smooth transition is mostly an afterthought.

There's a lack of leadership in organizations because managers with great leadership potential often get stuck fulfilling the demands of their role. Managers shouldn’t be promoted and given a leadership title without building essential skills first. Use these 5 strategies to rise from management to leadership.

Leadership / Management

How to Rise From Management to Leadership

The path from management to leadership is often not clear. This makes many managers with great leadership potential get stuck in their jobs. To rise from management to leadership, managers need to commit to practicing a few essential skills. They need to expand their thinking skills, contribute beyond their team and learn to connect ideas from different disciplines and domains. Instead of trying to earn the leadership title, they need to focus on being seen as a leader first.

People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk.This prevents most managers from getting an accurate picture of how others view them, often creating a huge gap between perception and reality.

Management / Personal Development

How To Give Feedback To Your Manager

People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk. This prevents most managers from getting an accurate picture of how others view them, often creating a huge gap between perception and reality. Just like your manager is expected to share constant feedback to help you learn and grow, you also need to contribute to your manager’s growth.

If your employee is unpredictable or inconsistent in their performance or if they are not reaching for their potential, helping them bridge this gap is your responsibility as a manager. Don’t assume there’s something wrong with them or that they simply don’t care. Many factors play a role in determining how people put their talents to use.

Leadership / Management

What To Do If Your Employee Isn’t Reaching Their Full Potential

If your employee is unpredictable or inconsistent in their performance or if they are not reaching for their potential, helping them bridge this gap is your responsibility as a manager. Don’t assume there’s something wrong with them or that they simply don’t care. Many factors play a role in determining how people put their talents to use.

Effective leaders, though rare, are inspirational. They bring people together and enable them to collectively achieve great things together. They put the welfare of the organization and their people above their own self interests.

Leadership / Management

9 Powerful Behaviors of Highly Effective Leaders That Sets Them Apart

What makes some leaders produce excellent work while others barely do a part of their job? When leaders aren’t conscious of their time, let fear guide their decisions, worry about being disliked, and use excuses to delay or put off things that need their time and attention, they fail to do their job. Their behaviors push the organization back instead of lifting it up.

Becoming a manager may appear like a step up in your role. It definitely comes with a better pay and more responsibilities. But are you ready for it?

Leadership / Management

Am I Ready To Be a Manager?

A big mistake that employees at all levels make is confusing career development with attaining specific positions. Rush to climb the career ladder makes them take on positions which make them miserable because they actually don’t enjoy the role or not having the proper skills to do their job well leads to exhaustion and burnout. Becoming a manager when you’re not ready is the worst of all. Your job is not just about you. You’re now responsible for other human beings. Take a long term perspective. Don’t be short-sighted.

For a manager, being effective is not optional, it’s a crucial part of their job. Without effectiveness, more time is spent on inconsequential tasks and less on forward moving activities.

Leadership / Management

6 Micro Habits of Highly Effective Managers

For a manager, being effective is not optional, it’s a crucial part of their job. Without effectiveness more time is spent on inconsequential tasks and less on forward moving activities, effort spent never matches up to the results, opportunities are missed and problems linger on. Effectiveness is nothing but a habit and much like other habits in life, it too can be learned. If you want to be an effective manager, master these 6 micro habits.

To turn your managers into successful leaders, don’t be too involved or too disconnected. Find the sweet spot where you know just enough to coach when needed while giving them the space to explore, work things out on their own and learn from their mistakes. Ask your managers these 5 questions every month.

Leadership / Management

5 Questions to Ask Your Managers Every Month to Help Them Grow as a Leader

When you stop managing individual contributors and start managing other managers, a lot needs to change. Your role is no longer about assigning tasks, meeting deadlines or taking care of your team’s work assignments and other responsibilities. Your managers are now doing the work you used to do yourself. So, how can you let go of the control? How can you trust them to do the job while you’re still responsible for it? Ask these 5 questions to your managers every month.

To be an effective manager create a safe space for employees to voice their opinion, help them build creative thinking skills by leading with questions and strike the right balance between challenging and personally caring for them.

Leadership / Management

Want to be an Effective Manager? Build These 3 Skills

As a manager, you may feel that there are too many things to learn and too little time to put everything into practice. However, working hard to catch up to the demands and expectations of the job will only leave you tired and exhausted. Good management does not require being a superhuman with extraordinary skills. It only requires practicing these 3 important skills.

Building extraordinary workplaces with high performing teams requires more than hiring the right talent and equipping them with the right opportunities. It requires cultivating the right habits and incorporating them into daily work and life.

Leadership / Management

5 Excellent Habits of High Performing Teams

What makes some teams do exceptionally well and others to perform poorly? Do they have more talented team members, better resources or are simply being lucky? Teams that stand out are not more talented, better skilled or have greater opportunities. What sets them apart are their habits and practices. Empowering work culture, support from leaders in the organization and clarity of vision and goals is important, but they’re not sufficient to drive excellence and high performance in teams.

When employees think they’re not fairly evaluated or their manager lacks information on their true value and worth, it affects their performance and productivity. Not being recognized for what they bring to the table hits them hard—they don’t see a point in taking up new challenges and opportunities or going the extra mile. That's why it's so important to take performance reviews seriously and do them well.

Leadership / Management

How to Put People at the Center of Performance Reviews

When employees think they’re not fairly evaluated or their manager lacks information on their true value and worth, it affects their performance and productivity. Not being recognized for what they bring to the table hits them hard—they don’t see a point in taking up new challenges and opportunities or going the extra mile. Doing performance reviews well requires intention and effort, but done right, it can give big returns on investment.

Being a manager of managers is a great responsibility. Your behaviors and actions not only impacts your managers, but also people reporting to them. Even though you have a lot to learn, by applying the right practices you can step up and be the leader that your people expect you to be.

Leadership / Management

5 Things I learned the Hard Way as a Manager of Managers

Being a manager of managers is a great responsibility. The impact of your decisions and what you say or do not only impacts your managers, but also people reporting to them. Attracting great talent is not enough. You also need to hold them together and help them achieve excellence. Even though you have a lot to learn, by applying the right practices you can step up and be the leader that your people expect you to be.

Letting difficult people have it their way for too long can cause damage beyond repair. Delivering feedback to difficult people is ineffective if it does not land right—they refuse to accept, become defensive and may even turn bitter which only makes working with them even harder. Apply the right strategies by embracing the difficult task of giving feedback to these difficult people. #toxicpeople #difficultpeople #toxicperson #toxicass #toxicity #givefeedback #constructivecriticism #honestfeedback #badbehavior #management #communication #leadership #teamgrowth #collaboration

Communication / Management

How to Give the Most Effective Feedback to a Difficult Person

Healthy boundaries are essential for the mental and personal well-being of all employees at work. When these boundaries are exploited by difficult people, the more time someone spends around them, the more damage they suffer. Apply these 4 strategies to give feedback to a difficult person without challenging them in a way that makes them quit or create more trouble.

As a manager, hearing an employee quit is the most challenging experience. On the one hand, you’re worried about the impact it may have on your team, on the other you’re concerned about how it reflects on you as a manager. However by responding in a thoughtful manner, you can have a constructive discussion and may even convince them to stay.

Leadership / Management

How to Respond When an Employee Quits

As a manager, hearing that someone on your team quit is the most challenging experience. On the one hand, you’re worried about the impact it may have on your team, on the other you’re concerned about how it reflects on you as a manager. Losing a top performer, someone you value in the team or someone with great potential is definitely upsetting. It may be hard to believe at first especially if it comes off as a total surprise—they seemed committed and engaged and you really cared for them, so what went wrong?

Finding it hard to assert authority as a new manager? Not sure how you can assign tasks to your team, how you can raise concerns or how you can have tough conversations? Asserting authority as a new manager is uncomfortable and but you can do it right by praticing the right behaviors.

Leadership / Management

How to Assert Authority as a Young Manager

Not sure how you can assign tasks to your team, how you can raise concerns or how you can have tough conversations? Some discomfort is natural as a new manager. But letting your discomfort get in the way of your decisions, holding yourself back from giving your ideas and suggestions, hesitating to set direction and guide your team or delaying feedback with the worry how it might land with the other person not only makes you ineffective as a manager, it also hurts your team’s productivity and performance.

When you lose trust as a manager, it negatively impacts your team's productivity and performance. They are constantly on the lookout, watchful of how their actions will be perceived. Time and energy that’s better spent in doing work is wasted in useless arguments and discussions. Lack of trust turns minor disappointments into major setbacks. Negative outlook breeds suspicion, frustration, and resentment which leads to poor quality work.

Leadership / Management

Losing Trust As a Manager? Here’s How to Regain It

What’s the most important factor that impacts an employee’s motivation at work—the level of trust they feel towards their manager. High levels of trust make them feel valued, energizes them to work harder, and make them persist through difficulties and setbacks. Low levels of trust reverses the equation which negatively impacts their productivity and performance. You can lose trust as a manager if you don’t spend time noticing how you come across to others.

Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions is a phrase used by many managers—even the well-intentioned ones—who believe that it encourages their team members to be creative thinkers, while all it does is promote siloed thinking.The message you want to pass is one of encouragement and empowerment, but instead, it dissuades your team from bringing up problems—problems they find hard to solve or ones that need your support and guidance.

Leadership / Management

“Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions” is Hurting Your Team

Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions is a phrase used by many managers—even the well-intentioned ones—who believe that it encourages their team members to be creative thinkers, while all it does is promote siloed thinking. The message you want to pass is one of encouragement and empowerment, but instead, it dissuades your team from bringing up problems—problems they find hard to solve or ones that need your support and guidance.

Finding it hard to be effective as a new manager? Apply these strategies to succeed.

Leadership / Management

Finding It Hard to Be Effective as a New Manager? Here’s How to Succeed

When you get promoted to a new manager, there are lots of questions in your mind. With so many questions unanswered, it’s completely natural to feel unprepared. Your struggles are real. When you started as an individual contributor and got to a lead position, you thought you made it. But now as a manager, you are back to square one. To be effective as a new manager, you’ll need to acquire a set of skills that can only come through practice.

How do you get better as a manager? You can use feedback from your manager, inputs from your team, and outcomes you achieve as a measure of your performance, but by themselves, they do not help you get better. Without a system in place to measure yourself and actively monitor how you’re doing, you cannot determine areas that need your attention and the steps you must take to improve. Ask these 9 questions to be a great boss.

Leadership / Management

9 Questions Great Bosses Ask Themselves 

How do you get better as a manager? You can use feedback from your manager, inputs from your team, and outcomes you achieve as a measure of your performance, but by themselves, they do not help you get better. Without a system in place to measure yourself and actively monitor how you’re doing, you cannot determine areas that need your attention and the steps you must take to improve. Use these 9 questions that all great bosses ask themselves to improve their team’s performance.

One-on-one meetings go wrong not because of lack of effort. They go wrong when you don’t pay attention to little things that are needed to get them right. Watch out for these common one-on-one meeting mistakes.

Leadership / Management

These One-on-One Meeting Mistakes are Hurting Your Team

Do you regularly meet your people, give them advice and help them with their growth? You might be doing a lot of things right, but do you also take time to analyze the mistakes that can turn your one-on-one meetings unproductive and leave your employees feeling dissatisfied? One-on-one meetings go wrong not because of lack of effort. They go wrong when you don’t pay attention to little things that are needed to get them right.

High agency is about finding a way to get what you want, without waiting for the conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances. High agency people either push through in the face of adversity or they manage to reverse it to achieve their goals. They either find a way, or they make a way.

Leadership / Management

High Agency: Quality that Sets Leaders Who Win From Those Who Whine Apart

High agency is important at every step of the career, but it’s even more crucial as you ascend the ladder and take up a leadership position in an organization. For a leader, vision and ability aren’t differentiating factors anymore. An ambitious vision for the future only sets the direction. It’s the high agency that gives life to that vision and makes it possible. It’s the high agency that sets a leader apart. Learn to recognize and cultivate it.

A leader’s job in any organization isn’t to tell people what to do, be involved in every problem, or deliver 100% perfect outcomes. Their job is to enable their people to use their knowledge to make their own decisions, motivate them to build the skills necessary to feel confident, and use their own time effectively to look into the future and solve hard problems. They can do this by effectively implementing decision tree model to seek better alignment at all levels.

Leadership / Management

The Decision Tree: Alignment Model Leaders Need to Make Better Decisions

A leader’s job in any organization isn’t to tell people what to do or be involved in every problem. Their job is to enable their people to make their own decisions, motivate them to build the skills necessary to feel confident, and use their own time effectively to look into the future and solve hard problems. They can do this by shifting from control to context and seeking alignment using the decision tree.

As a manager, the uncertainty of your decisions along with the daily struggle to make things happen can be quite taxing on your personal health and mental wellbeing. Unless you learn to take care of yourself, you can’t really be productive. Practicing self-care as a manager isn’t just necessary, it should be your topmost priority.

Leadership / Management

How to Practice Self Care as a Manager

As a manager, there isn’t a rule book for all the decisions you need to make and all the steps you need to take. You will make plenty of mistakes on the way. You will have a hard time getting your ideas heard and convincing others. The uncertainty of your decisions along with the daily struggle to make things happen can be quite taxing on your personal health and mental wellbeing. Practicing self-care as a manager isn’t just necessary, it should be your topmost priority.

Giving difficult feedback is the most difficult thing you may have to do at work, but building this skill is like building muscle. It only gets better with practice. It never gets easy, you only get better.

Leadership / Management

How To Be Comfortable Giving Difficult Feedback

What’s more dreadful than receiving difficult feedback? Giving one. Worried that negative feedback will hurt the other person and ruin your relationship is one of the biggest deterrents to avoid saying what you need to say. Giving difficult feedback is the most difficult thing you may have to do at work, but building this skill is like building muscle. It only gets better with practice. It never gets easy, you only get better.

The difference between leaders who push their teams to the ground and those who take their teams to great heights isn’t knowledge, capability, or competence. It isn’t even their motivation and desire to succeed. They both want to achieve success. What sets them apart is the difference in how they handle their ignorance. An ignorant leader's ignorance isn't limited to their skills and abilities, but also how they come across to others.

Leadership / Management

Your Ignorance is Causing You to Fail as a Leader

The difference between leaders who push their teams to the ground and those who take their teams to great heights isn’t knowledge, capability, or competence. It isn’t even their motivation and desire to succeed. They both want to achieve success. What sets them apart is the difference in how they handle their ignorance. Their ignorance isn’t limited to their skills and abilities, but also how they come across to others.

In a fast-moving, ever-changing, dynamic work environment, the ability to collaborate effectively isn’t a necessity, it’s a superpower. Learn about the cross functional collaboration challenges and the steps managers can take to make it effective.

Leadership / Management

Challenges With Cross Functional Collaboration and What to Do About It

In a fast-moving, ever-changing, dynamic work environment, the ability to collaborate effectively isn’t a necessity, it’s a superpower. When collaborating across teams, communication, coordination, visibility, execution speed, and decision-making can turn into a mess. Learn about the cross functional collaboration challenges and the steps managers can take to make it effective.

Authentic leadership goes wrong when leaders try to live up to some grand image. To match their behaviors and actions to an idealized version of an authentic leader and feeling exhausted and defeated when they fail to inspire the necessary changes in their teams and their organizations. By getting hung up on becoming their best versions, they fail to show up their authentic versions.

Leadership / Management

Being on the Wrong Side of Authentic Leadership

Authentic leadership goes wrong when leaders try to match their behaviors and actions to an idealized version of an authentic leader and feel exhausted and defeated when they fail to inspire the necessary changes in their teams and their organizations. By getting hung up on becoming their best versions, they fail to show up their authentic versions. To practice true authenticity, knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do.

Organizations that thrive are run by leaders who see opportunity in uncertainty, who cut through ambiguity, and those who lead with the mindset to gain clarity. Done right, ambiguity can be exhilarating, rewarding, and mentally stimulating. Done wrong, it can be exhausting, emotionally consuming, and even downright demotivating. It’s only by considering different perspectives, asking better questions, and learning from their own systems, leaders can build the curiosity and flexibility required to purposefully deal with ambiguity.

Leadership / Management

How Great Leaders Deal With Ambiguity

Organizations that thrive are run by leaders who see opportunity in uncertainty, who cut through ambiguity, and those who lead with the mindset to gain clarity. Done right, ambiguity can be exhilarating, rewarding, and mentally stimulating. Done wrong, it can be exhausting, emotionally consuming, and even downright demotivating. Apply these 7 strategies to learn how to deal with ambiguity.

Becoming a manager isn’t easy. All the uncertainty and confusion can either leave you disoriented and feeling overwhelmed with a lack of control or you can embrace it and use it as the force to push ahead. You can succeed as a manager by looking beyond all the randomness and chaos to adopting a mentality where nothing can pull you down. You can lead and succeed by practicing these 20 principles.

Leadership / Management

Becoming A Manager: 20 Principles To Learn and Lead

Becoming a manager isn’t easy. All the uncertainty and confusion can either leave you disoriented and feeling overwhelmed with a lack of control or you can embrace it and use it as the force to push ahead. You can succeed as a manager by looking beyond all the randomness and chaos to adopting a mentality where nothing can pull you down. You can lead and succeed by practicing these 20 principles.

Too many meetings at work is an easy escape and excuse to avoid the things that demands your time and attention - planning for the future, identifying better opportunities for your team, or investing in your own learning. Don't let the “too many meetings” and “this is a manager’s life” excuse go on for too long. It's time for you to be real. Take one hard look at your life and face the reality of your situation.

Leadership / Management

Too Many Meetings At Work? Here’s How to Stop the Meeting Madness

Are you in a constant state of frenzy throughout the day moving from one meeting to the next only to be left exhausted, disoriented and grumpy? Don’t let the “too many meetings” and “this is a manager’s life” excuse go on for too long. Get over your own nonsense and start putting some sense into your work

wrong-about-burnout-at-work

Leadership / Management

I Was Wrong About Burnout At Work and You are Probably Too

Promoting vacation time, taking breaks between work, doing walk-and-talk audio calls instead of video calls to deal with zoom fatigue, and even asking people to have no meeting days are all super useful techniques to deal with the problems of work related exhaustion, but by themselves they are not sufficient to solve the problem of burnout at work. That’s because work overload is just one of the causes of burnout

Building resilient as a team requires knowing that failure is a part of life and not an excuse to stop trying, avoid risk or ignore challenging circumstances. It’s not displaying toxic positivity, but rather having a sense of realistic optimism. It’s staying flexible and adapting to the change around us and not being rigid about our beliefs and expectations. Resilience is building a sense of coherence, both physically and mentally by observing, adjusting and adapting to the world around us.

Leadership / Management

Bounce Back: How to Help Your Team Fail Fast and Be Resilient At Work

Irrespective of how much we tell our teams to move past failures and learn from mistakes, we know that it isn’t easy to accept a failure. The expectation to do well at work makes people believe that failure isn’t an option. There’s a huge difference between feelings of disappointment and letting those emotions turn into feelings of devastation. Building resilience as a team is all about understanding that difference

managing-leadership-anxiety

Leadership / Management

Leadership Anxiety: How to Lead When You Feel It

Leadership anxiety can be a good thing when managed well. It can inspire you to question your choices, confront your own feelings and engage proactively with the desire to do better. The problem occurs when you let your leadership anxiety prevent you from seeing the reality of your situation. When you are so caught up in your own anxiety that it fogs your ability to think and see clearly

If your employees fight in the workplace, as a manager, it's your job to define a healthy boundary between constructive disagreements and destructive behavior. Freedom to disagree with others cannot be boundaryless and it cannot come at the cost of creating a toxic work environment for the team.

Communication / Management

What to Do When Your Employees are Fighting in the Workplace

When your team members are fighting or are otherwise engaged in an uncordial relationship, the rest of the team can’t function very well. Freedom to disagree with others cannot be boundaryless and it cannot come at the cost of creating a toxic work environment for the team. As a manager, it’s your job to define a healthy boundary between constructive disagreements and destructive behavior

To build accountability at work you need to build awareness of the measure of accountability by setting clear expectations and aligning on those expectations, create acceptance around behaviors and actions that demonstrate accountability, communicate that you care while showing the openness to be candid and engage with your employees by acting as their support structure.

Leadership / Management

The Fine Balance Between Caring for People and Holding them Accountable at Work

Caring for your people and holding them accountable for their work aren’t mutually exclusive. You don’t need to be nice and kind to people to show them you care. And caring for them doesn’t mean you don’t care about the outcomes. Build accountability at work by helping your employees differentiate between taking responsibility and showing accountability

In his book, The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger writes about his personal leadership philosophy that has guided him in the last 45 years. These 43 leadership lessons from Robert Iger will help you become a better leader.

Leadership / Management

Disney Chairman Robert Iger’s Lessons For Great Leadership

Robert Iger, now Executive Chairman of The Walt Disney Company is the former CEO of Disney. During his 15 years as CEO of Disney and as President of ABC Television prior to that, he led the company to amazing new heights. Under his leadership, Disney’s market capitalization increased from $48 billion to $257 billion. Every leader needs to embody his personal leadership lessons

From strategy to execution to results, no leader can be effective without the foundations of trust. Trust is the single most critical driver of every leader’s effectiveness and the hidden element in the formula of every business’s success. Lead with trust by practicing positive behaviors that strengthens your relationship with your employees.

Leadership / Management

Leading With Trust: 4 Effective Ways to Build Trust as a Leader

From strategy to execution to results, no leader can be effective without the foundations of trust. Trust is the single most critical driver of every leader’s effectiveness and the hidden element in the formula of every business’s success. Trust can only be earned and evolved by consistently practicing positive behaviors over long periods of time

As a manager, you need to learn to scale yourself while also scaling for impact. The only way to do that is to learn to delegate work effectively. Giving up control can feel hard, but it’s also necessary for growth.

Leadership / Management

How to Delegate Work Effectively: 5 Steps to Let Go of Control and Start Doing More

To delegate effectively, managers need to be intentional about the work that only they need to do and create clarity for their team on the rest. They have to learn to invest in those around them by letting go of control. Giving up control can feel hard, but it’s also necessary for growth. It’s the only way to scale for impact in an organization

Even if you are a great manager who really cares about their employees, open yourself to the idea that your actions might be unintentionally contributing to a toxic work environment. Being self-aware and showing willingness to accept reality can help you identify the role you play in supporting the toxic culture, even if in small ways and build strategies to combat it.

Leadership / Management

Are You Contributing to a Toxic Work Environment Without Realizing It?

Most managers discard the notion that they could be toxic due to a flawed assumption about what contributes to toxicity. The standard list of toxic behaviors is well known. What misses attention are the subtle behaviors that also impact employees’ well-being. If you are a manager, open yourself to the idea that your actions might be unintentionally contributing to a toxic work environment

Every manager deals with the fear of having to tell an employee they are not ready for a promotion at some point. The disconnect between the expectation and the reality happens because the manager doesn’t take steps to bridge the gap between the two. Fear gets in the way.

Leadership / Management

How to Tell an Employee They Are Not Ready for a Promotion

What’s more crucial than not promoting the person who isn’t ready for one? The right kind of communication. Because this is where most managers fail to do their job. As the manager fails to communicate, the employees continue developing a chip on their shoulders with their unfulfilled wishes and desires. It amplifies every time they lose an opportunity to get promoted

Growth mindset in the workplace shows up when hard work, determination and perseverance are valued over talent. When employees are coached to learn new skills, experiment and use failures as valuable learning opportunities.

Leadership / Management

How To Promote a Growth Mindset in the Workplace

Growth mindset in the workplace shows up when hard work, determination and perseverance are valued over talent. Employees who work for growth mindset organizations have far more trust in their company and a greater sense of empowerment. They welcome challenges which makes them more successful learners and better contributors to their organizations. Learn to promote this mindset

Are you ready for a leadership position? Any manager looking to grow into a leader needs to do a self-evaluation of their skills to the demands of the role. It’s only by staying true to yourself, you can embrace the role with openness and curiosity.

Leadership / Management

Are You Ready for a Leadership Position?

Any manager looking to grow into a leader needs to do a self-evaluation of their skills to the demands of the role. It’s only by staying true to yourself, you can embrace the role with openness and curiosity. Developing your leadership style is always going to be a work in progress. There’s no end state. But recognising a few essential traits can get you started and help you identify if you are ready for the leadership position

Bad managers suck so much emotional and mental energy from their people that there isn’t any energy left to do real work. The hard truth is as more and more time is spent in “pleasing the boss” and “dealing with their tantrums,” there’s less time left to do any quality work

Leadership / Management

Bad Managers: What Not to Do When Everyone Looks to You

Are you a bad manager standing in the way of your employee’s true potential? You may believe that you are clearing the path for employees to produce great work. What you may end up doing is standing over their heads thereby preventing them to think clearly. You know what’s worst about the worst boss? They are ignorant of their own ignorance. Learn to recognize signs that lead to bad boss behaviour

Confident humility is the confidence in a leader’s ability to make the right decision while acknowledging that they need others to do it right. It’s knowing what they don’t know and having trust in what they do. It’s having faith in their strengths, while also being aware of their weaknesses. It’s accepting that they don’t have the required knowledge, but enough confidence in their ability to acquire that knowledge.

Leadership / Management

Confident Humility: Paradox of Successful Leadership

Confident humility is the confidence in a leader’s ability to make the right decision while acknowledging that they need others to do it right. It’s knowing what they don’t know and having trust in what they do. It’s having faith in their strengths, while also being aware of their weaknesses. It’s accepting that they don’t have the required knowledge, but enough confidence in their ability to acquire that knowledge

Giving constructive feedback is a particularly difficult skill to master. But even with some small changes, you can make a big difference. Once you learn about the right and wrong way of giving positive feedback and sharing criticism, you can take steps to incrementally build the skills you need to be effective in your role as a manager and a leader

Leadership / Management

How To Give Feedback That Matters: Art of Constructive Criticism And Positive Feedback

Even with the best of intentions, giving constructive feedback is hard. It isn’t intuitive and most of us aren’t good at it. Even when we dare to do the right thing, we may not do it right. Telling people what they are doing right and wrong is not enough, you need to learn the art of giving constructive criticism and positive feedback to your employees

Leaders who focus on growth operate with a learning mode. They don’t claim to be genius, but promise to invest in development, their own development and development of their people. The drive and enthusiasm to grow their companies makes them adopt long term strategies over short term tactics. They aren’t in the game to boost their ego or establish their self esteem. It’s the pure joy of shaping the future of their company that excites and motivates them. More than prestige, they are in it for the challenge

Leadership / Management

Leadership Is About Growth, Not Brilliance

Leadership isn’t about personal greatness and entitlement, it’s the humility to lead with courage and passion. Leaders who focus on their brilliant mindset spend time and money in enhancing their image, and use people in the company to feed their ego as opposed to leaders with a growth mindset who show drive and enthusiasm to grow their companies

A common language for team communication is an agreement on how to communicate effectively and it is the binding force that connects people in a team together through shared understanding

Communication / Management

Managers, Do You Have A Language For Your Team?

What’s your contribution to the communication structure of your team? What assumptions did you make, how did you separate what’s acceptable from what’s not and what problems do you see in the current way of working together. Letting every team member develop their own communication playbook is not only inefficient, it leaves a lot to interpretation

High performers in any organisation aren’t easy to manage. With their uncanny ability to produce outstanding work and an appetite to solve tough problems, they demand even greater attention and engagement from their managers. As a manager, you need to care enough to not lose your high performers. Nothing will be more valuable than the time invested in helping your excellent performers achieve further excellence

Leadership / Management

High Performers: 7 Proactive Steps To Lead Them To Excellence

Do you take time to tell your high performers that you value them and care enough to be invested in their growth? High performers are 400% more productive than an average performer. Losing them robs the organisation of excellence. Nothing will be more valuable than the time spent in helping your excellent performers achieve further excellence

What separates a good manager from a bad one is in the choice - do they accept vulnerability and commit to learning or put on an armor and try to save themselves?

Management / Personal Development

What Type Of Manager Are You?

Signing up to be a manager is an act of great courage. While the change demands letting go of our existing identity and embracing new one with openness and curiosity, it’s our mindset that determines what we make of it. What type of manager are you – do you accept vulnerability and commit to learning or put on an armor and try to protect yourself from the challenges that lie ahead?

Great leaders aren’t perfect and they are not always right, but they clearly exhibit a set of leadership qualities that makes them stand out. You can see it in the way they navigate chaos in a complex world, visualise future and speak of it with a strong conviction, draw out the path to what success looks like and take people along in their journey to a better and brighter future

Leadership / Management

Leadership Qualities: 21 Leadership Traits That Define Great Leaders

Great leaders aren’t perfect and they are not always right, but they clearly exhibit a set of leadership qualities that makes them stand out. To understand what makes someone a truly great leader, we need to move from a superficial attribution of their characteristics to the underlying behaviours and actions that make up these qualities

Navigating the path to each employee’s success is not trivial and requires a commitment to be patient, dedication to push ahead despite failures and devising unique ways to inspire and bring out the best in every individual. One-on-one meetings is a slow process, but done right it can be your ultimate advantage as a manager

Leadership / Management

One-On-One Meetings: How Great Managers Navigate The Path To Employee’s Ultimate Success

Navigating the path to each employee’s success is not trivial and requires a commitment to be patient, dedication to push ahead despite failures and devising unique ways to inspire and bring out the best in every individual. One-on-one meetings is a slow process, but done right it can be your ultimate advantage as a manager

We all face multiple conflicts at work, but it’s the conflict with the boss that can be our biggest source of stress and exhaustion at work. Does your manager push your buttons, takes away your high hopes, crushes your desire to be innovative and refrains you from producing your best work. Are they a micromanager?

Management / Personal Development

Stop Being Micromanaged: How To Deal With A Micromanager The Right Way

We all face multiple conflicts at work, but it’s the conflict with the boss that can be our biggest source of stress and exhaustion at work. Does your manager push your buttons, takes away your high hopes, crushes your desire to be innovative and refrains you from producing your best work. Are they a micromanager?

Empowering teams by giving up control is not easy. The fear that others are not capable and lack the required amount of clarity to make the best decision interferes with our ability to relinquish control. Empowering teams is not a matter of intent but rather how we put that intent to action. It’s the shift in mindset from “I am responsible for making the best decisions” to “I am responsible for developing people who can make the best decisions"

Leadership / Management

Empowering Teams: To High Performance And Excellence

How can we transform from the command and control style to leveraging the power of self-direction that energizes and engages people? Empowering teams by giving up control is not easy. The fear that others are not capable and lack the required amount of clarity to make the best decision interferes with our ability to relinquish control

Managing up is nothing but an investment in building a relationship with our manager to work better together. Navigating this dynamic requires taking initiative, caring for the person above, sharing responsibility and owning our own growth with a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset. Managing up can also be referred to as choosing to communicate effectively upwards

Management / Personal Development

Managing Up To Take Charge Of Your Own Growth

Do you take charge of your own growth by managing up or believe it’s your managers responsibility to enable trust, build a strong rapport with you, give you work that will help you shine and remove all barriers that can impede your success at work. How do you see the other side of this bi-directional relationship?

5 areas of self reasoning and introspection to determine if you really want to be a manager. Before you decide to be a manager, answer the key questions raised in these 5 areas to determine if manager role is right for you or not

Decisions / Management

Do You Really Want To Be A Manager?

Management is a choice. Embracing it for the right reasons requires reasoning with self, questioning our thoughts, staying true to how we feel about the role and then making a conscious decision. If you really want to be a manager, explore possibilities and understand its unique challenges

To lead during a crisis, we need many people to step up and act as leaders by navigating unchartered territories together, planning for future contingencies while also addressing current needs. Leaders who take care of their people over profit during a crisis will build trust and long term relationships by doing what's right

Leadership / Management

10 Ways To Lead Through A Crisis

In times of uncertainty when there’s little clarity on how the events will unfold, fear and worry of the unknown can consume us. Risk of business and personal lives in such surreal circumstances can cause feelings of fear, helplessness, anger and stress. Learning to lead through a crisis will require people to step up in their roles and lead others through unsettling and uncertain times

Mentor and mentee form a bond that lasts long. Mentoring requires trust, collaboration and syndication of ideas where both mentor and mentee respect each other's viewpoints.

Management / Personal Development

Mentorship: Key To Effective Mentor Mentee Relationship

Mentor mentee relationship is a beautiful orchestration between two parties built on trust. It’s an incredible experience effective in shaping learning and growth. Mentoring is a true meeting of the minds that requires commitment to hold each other accountable, respect and openness to share ideas and perspectives and engage in meaningful goals

When leaders build a feedback culture that encourages people to give and seek feedback, it creates a feedback rich environment where feedback is part of day-to-day work

Leadership / Management

How To Create Feedback Rich Environment

Feedback culture built on the principles of openness and growth can give way to a feedback rich environment where employees feel safe to voice opinions and take charge of their own growth by giving and seeking feedback. The desire to work better and improve together shifts the mindset from one of fear to one of growth.

Learn the basic building blocks of engineering management to master and be successful in your journey as an engineering manager

Leadership / Management

Basic Building Blocks To Be A Successful Engineering Manager

Engineering management is a discipline, a subjective practice that’s hard to quantify. It requires a mindset shift from doing to enabling others. While there’s no one answer to all the problems an engineering manager faces at the workplace, learning about the basic building blocks can help people improve and find their own management style

What do leaders of today need - effectiveness or efficiency. Creating a right balance of effectiveness and efficiency can help leaders do right things right. They can create a future looking strategy that encourages innvotation, adapts to changing environment and aligns objectives with goals

Leadership / Management

Effectiveness vs Efficiency: Why Successful Leaders Need Both

Leaders who find time to create the right balance of effectiveness and efficiency determine what needs to be done first and then find a way to do it efficiently. They look beyond the bounds of the organisation with the desire for a better future laying down future strategy that leads to growing people and business

In the fast moving world of technology, leaders and managers need to embrace flexibility in the workplace. They need to build a culture of trust where output is valued more than the number of hours spent in office. They must drive it through their actions and not merely in speaking

Leadership / Management

Manifesto To Flexibility In The Workplace

How does workplace culture give way to inflexible working environments. Can we provide flexibility in the workplace where trust is the basis of all work and employees feel committed to company’s success and growth