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In our line of work, we are asked to facilitate A LOT of classes on leadership! It’s a hot topic. Every company wants its people, especially management, to lead. And really, it makes good business sense to get your people demonstrating better leadership behaviors. The fact of the matter is, though, it’s not as easy as you think…there are a lot of issues that accompany the pursuit of leadership.Some people view leadership as a position. In fact, many believe that in order to be a leader, you must have a title that includes Chief, Manager or Supervisor. While we all hope that these positions include the responsibility of leadership, we all know that many with those with titles don’t always (or sometimes ever) demonstrate leadership behaviors.
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Many of us have taken a course, or maybe two, on how to improve our communication. But how does technology impact your ability to effectively communicate? Most people spend up to 7 hours daily using technologies and social media to include email, texting, blogs, Facebook, Linked In, etc. to communicate. This replaces face-to-face communication in many situations. We have access to these lines of communication at all times - with Smartphones and other mobile devices. Technology is fantastic because it allows us to communicate fast and stay connected with a broader base of people. What do your posts, emails, and texts say about you professionally? Are you being as effective as you can be?
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"A wise person once told me that you are the average of the seven people you surround yourself with. At first, this seemed like something out of one of those ‘guru’ books, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew this person was right. I was surrounding myself with people who depended upon me to show them the way; people who were seeking my approval and guidance. So I asked myself, “What now?” What I decided has not only helped reduce stress, but is changing my life for the better.
You should examine your life, take a look at the people around you and those that you choose to associate with regularly. Are there people that are dragging you down? Are there others that have potential, but just aren’t quite there yet? Examining those that contribute to your life and happiness is not an easy task, but once done, you will end up with two groups: the keepers and the throw-backs.
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Do you have a mentor? Do you encourage your employees to have mentors? Many companies have jumped on the mentoring bandwagon. What’s curious about this is how mentoring is defined by these companies. Before mentoring was in vogue, you could ask people, “Did/Do you have a mentor in your life?” If their response was “yes” the answer to the follow-up question, “Were they totally aware that they were mentoring you?” was probably “No.” However, they made a significant impact in the life of the mentee. So in other words, the mentee chose the mentor.
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Do you find yourself doing projects yourself because you don’t trust that others will do the job correctly? Team members and managers alike fall into this habit more than you think. What tends to follow are things like enormous workloads, anger at teammates, job dissatisfaction, low morale, and employee burn-out.
Common sense would tell us to confront the people on our team to fix the problem. Right? Well, in reality, many people will avoid this confrontation altogether. There all kinds of reasons why this crucial conversation never happens.
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Do you spend more time on email than any other activity in your workday? When you are in meetings do you check your phone multiple times – not fully engaged in the discussion? Is email the first thing you check when you get up in the morning and the last thing you check before you go to bed?
You may be ready to blame all the other people in your organization for this phenomenon. However, we need to first look at own practices and evaluate how we are contributing to the email overload problem.
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“I’m an executive in our company. I don’t need leadership training!” I would venture to guess that the majority of people who are members of a company’s executive team would think, if not actually say, these words. But if we asked those same executives if someone else on their team needed to improve their leadership skills, we’d get an irrefutable “Yes!” I find it interesting that we can look around the table and point fingers at those who demonstrate poor leadership practices at the same time we fail to recognize our own behaviors are far less than leader-like!
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