Category Archives: Blog

Make Time For Big-Picture Thinking

As a business leader, one of your principal roles is to guide your team to achieve big-picture goals. To do that, finding time to regularly step back and reflect on those objectives is crucial. Those pauses for reflection allow leaders to maintain their eyes on the target, take stock of a team’s current position and reorient if necessary to successfully accomplish the plan.

Finding Time

Constant emails, phone calls, meetings, questions from team members, admin and other day-to-day responsibilities can really eat up your time and distract you from big-picture thinking and revision.

Effective time management is key. Be choosy when accepting meeting invitations. Try to determine the reason for the meeting and if your attendance is necessary to achieve results. If not, politely decline and ask for minutes if you want them. If your input is required for a meeting, maintain a “hard out” in an attempt to keep things concise.

Place recurring non-negotiable blocks of time on your calendar that you can take for the purpose of big-picture thinking. If you don’t schedule it and make it a priority, it will not happen.

In order to make space for those blocks of time, delegate smaller tasks to capable team members. If you are not accustomed to delegating, it can be overwhelming at first and may require time and training. To delegate tasks more effectively, identify the job and provide clear-cut instructions to the delegated team member. Check back in only occasionally to ensure that the work progresses. With reliable professionals taking on smaller projects, you are freed up to redirect your attention to higher-priority matters.

When To Evaluate

Most leaders conduct an annual or semi-annual review of their employees. This might be a great starting benchmark for analyzing a team’s progress toward its goals.

However, the frequency with which you review your big-picture goals throughout the year may depend on company size or the complexity of your goals. If your business plan is multifaceted with each department’s goals intertwined, you may want to take more frequent pauses to step back and analyze progress and next steps.

Company-Wide Objectives

In an ideal scenario, the CEO will establish and communicate company-wide goals with a specific timeline to all upper-level leadership from the very beginning. Setting intentions from the start is vital.

Once a company-wide goal is in place, CEOs must then check in with their team to make sure that all department heads are on the same page and consistently working toward the overarching goals of the business. Armed with the information of big-picture goals, those department leaders can in turn create department-level plans and objectives for their teams that support the main business goal.

A savvy leader will pause on a regular basis to analyze their team’s role and progress in achieving the larger goal. In doing so, your team can be more versatile and can pivot according to changes in the market or internal factors that might affect your plans. That flexibility can enable you to still achieve objectives despite the unexpected—resulting in ultimate success.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

The Role Of Humility In Confident Leadership

During the length of your career as an executive leader, you will most likely have seasons of extreme confidence when you seem to be cruising along and doing everything right. Then suddenly, you’ll encounter some rocky ground that puts you on unsure footing, and you won’t know where it’s safe to step or in which direction to move.

Those moments are very normal, but more than that, they’re crucial. Being a confident leader actually requires having a little bit of humility.

Confident Leadership Is A Balancing Act

Naturally, confidence is fundamental in management. A confident executive presence, which involves having a clear vision and certainty about goals, can create trust and boost credibility. Once a manager has a well-defined objective, they can assemble the team and communicate those objectives to everyone involved. After all, a group will follow their leader on a journey with more optimism if they know there’s a clear destination in mind.

However, some leaders put too high a value on their own opinion. They can then fall into the pit of arrogance, which is detrimental to the success of their team. That’s why humility is a necessary quality for strong leaders. In my experience, some of the best leaders aren’t the smartest people in the room. They are, however, wise enough to harness the brainpower of their collective teams. For example, perhaps you have a rough plan to achieve your goals, but there are some gray areas you aren’t sure how to navigate. If you show humility and ask for advice and input from your team, you’ll receive the proper information to make better choices.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

How To Adapt Your Leadership Style For The Challenges Of The Modern Business World

Leadership is not a one-size-fits-all type of role. Effective leaders can come in all forms. Charismatic legends like Steve Jobs, Jack Welch or Oprah Winfrey may spring to mind, but their style is only one type of leadership technique available to you.

In today’s business world, leaders are running into challenges due to the changing landscape of the workforce and the varying expectations that teams hold for their managers. Navigating those tensions can be difficult but attainable. In fact, facing these challenges is imperative if you want to keep your leadership style relevant.

Here’s how to confront and adapt your leadership style to meet the demands of the modern business world:

Align your perception with reality.

The first step is self-awareness. Take the time to write out a self-evaluation. Describe what you think your leadership style is, making sure to include strengths and weaknesses, as well as how you believe others see you. Ask a trusted colleague to write a similar evaluation of you. Next, compare your self-evaluation with theirs and see if and where there may be discrepancies. Those areas are the perfect places to discuss and dig deep to help you better understand your current leadership style.

Next, think about how you want to grow. Were the discrepancies you discovered in the self-evaluation exercise an indicator that your leadership style is not what you thought? Does it outline places for growth? Focus on them, and write out your personal goals for improvement or for taking your leadership style in a different direction.

Know your people.

Your leadership style might also need to change and adapt depending on the people you are leading. Some team members might like receiving clear marching orders and then go off to get their work done. Others might prefer to know the “why” of certain tasks and do their best work when they feel like part of a team. Though you should not make drastic flip-flops in your leadership style, it is important to know your team and how they like being led. Having that information will make your job much easier and more efficient.

Account for outside pressures.

Of course, there are also outside pressures that can affect how you lead in any given situation. A project may be time-sensitive, so taking time for lengthy meetings or wide-ranging team feedback is not feasible. You may have a vision for the outcome of a task but are not clear on how to achieve it, so you need to ask the experts on your team for guidance.

As a leader in the modern business world, you will find yourself in situations that require you to adapt your leadership style slightly to achieve success. A Harvard Business Review article suggests preparing for those moments by developing a portfolio of micro-behaviors you can employ when the situation demands you use a different style.

Admittedly, it is not an easy feat on one’s own. Try asking for feedback from your team or hiring a leadership coach to help you navigate the tricky waters of leadership in today’s business world. Only by understanding yourself, your team and the various challenges in the workforce that you may face can you prepare accordingly and excel as a leader in the modern era.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

Setting Your Team Up For Success When You Are Out Of The Office

How comfortable are you being out of the office? Between conferences, sick days, vacations or family emergencies—there are several reasons why you might need to be unreachable for a period of time. When you are absent, are you nervous that disaster is imminent? Are you thinking about the daunting number of emails and phone calls you’ll have to respond to upon your return?

You’re not alone. Leaders can be pulled in a lot of directions and feel the need to put out every single fire. However, good managers know how to set up an office environment that won’t break down every time they step out of the building.

Setting Up The Office Machine

The first step to setting your team up for success when you are out of the office is to prepare them while you are present. Think of your team as a sleek well-oiled machine. There are lots of cogs and pieces that need to be put in the right place to be at their most effective. There may be bugs to iron out. Team members may require occasional maintenance and an instruction manual—documents and guidelines to consult when troubleshooting unexpected issues.

Delegation and efficient problem-solving are major aspects of getting the machine up and running. Many team leaders feel the need to solve every problem themselves, but they are setting themselves up for failure because it simply can’t be one person’s job. Therefore, many of the minor difficulties should be delegated.

Discuss different types of problems that may arise on a day-to-day basis. Define them and practice problem-solving on all levels so that you can leave with confidence knowing that less-significant issues will be dealt with in the correct way.

Communication

When it is time for you to leave, make sure that you communicate your absence to the right people—preferably everyone that you may interact with on a day-to-day basis. If it’s a sudden absence, an OOO automatic email response may be sufficient, but try to include when you expect to be back. Your team will be less nervous about your departure and less likely to bother you if they have a date in mind when they know they’ll be able to reach you.

When taking a vacation, do your best to time it so that important team projects are not at a crucial stage when your input is most needed. While that may not always be possible, settle as much as you can before you leave. Let your team know that any other major decisions can be discussed when you get back and lay out parameters for decisions that you feel confident they can make themselves.

Always clearly communicate the team’s work priorities and expectations while you are away. While arranging for a leave of absence can require some preparation, training your team to be more self-sufficient can make your time both in and out of the office more manageable.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

Navigating Leadership In A Time Of Hybrid Work And Return-To-Office Policies

The COVID-19 crisis has changed the landscape in offices across the world. Companies whose CEOs claimed that they would never allow a work-from-home policy found that they had no choice but to institute one.

Now that working in a physical office is becoming safer again, leaders are beginning to re-evaluate. Several Fortune 100 companies are calling workers back in with sweeping return-to-office (RTO) policies, so should your company do the same?

Making The Decision

If you are in a leadership position that allows you to participate in the decision-making process in dictating your company’s new work structure, there are a few key questions to consider.

What are my company’s core values? Corporate culture and values should be a part of every major decision because they ultimately define a successful business. Consider whether an in-person work model is a crucial part of maintaining these principles.

What do my employees have to say on the matter? Ask for opinions and input from all levels. Employees may provide the critical piece of data you need to make an informed decision. Plus, their morale is a crucial part of a company’s success. Would they be motivated or disheartened if called back into the office? Even if you ultimately make a choice some disagree with, just asking for their thoughts can garner goodwill.

Have you seen a noticeable difference in productivity levels from employees working at home? Look at the data to decide if an in-person working model could possibly boost or decrease productivity.

What are the COVID-19 safety protocols that should be put in place? Signage that encourages frequent handwashing, hand-sanitizing stations in common areas and mask policies are all examples of hygiene regulations that I have seen implemented. The CDC guidelines are a fantastic resource to consult when choosing these protocols.

What are some hybrid options? An RTO policy does not have to be all or nothing. Perhaps the best option is a hybrid model that requires workers to attend on a few designated days a week, but they get the option to stay home on others.

Empowering Employees Through Change

Regardless of your company’s final decision, remember that change can be scary for people—especially for those who feel powerless during the decision-making process.

In order to keep employees engaged and productive, be sure that a team’s expectations are clearly communicated. Keep a living document that employees can consult from time to time. Among other things, this document should outline the company’s COVID-19 policies, employee expectations and communication guidelines.

Speaking of communication, today’s knowledge workers use several different channels, and each may have a favorite. However, with all the text messages, video calls, phone calls, emails, Slack messages and social media DMs, information can easily be lost or buried. To avoid confusion, I recommend outlining acceptable use for each type of channel.

For example, use Slack to arrange meetings or ask quick non-project-related questions. Emails can be a great way to outline progress reports or meeting notes. As a team, decide on the right form of communication for the right occasion so that information does not get lost. Make sure to keep this information in your living document and send reminders occasionally to make sure the team is adhering to the plan.

Clear communication and expectations are key to your success as a leader in these times of hybrid work models. Whether working from the office or from the comfort of your couch, successful teamwork can be possible.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes