Posts By Date

By: Beth Flynn, Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
Here are some practices that will help you walk in the other person's shoes. Follow these, and you'll be more empathetic, winsome, and engaging. Think about the person you're about to meet with:
  1. Picture the circumstances. What's happening, right now, in the other person's life? What pressures are they under?
  2. Reflect on what you can do to make that person comfortable and relaxed.
  3. Imagine what they are thinking. What's on their mind?
  4. Imagine what they are feeling. What emotions are they experiencing right now? What will their mood be?
  5. Lead with thoughtful questions about both thoughts and feelings.
  6. Start with their agenda, not yours. Don't be so anxious to persuade and convince-to push your point of view on them as soon as you're together.
  7. Think about how your ideas or proposals will be received. How will the other person react?
  8. Try to help others come up with the right answer or best conclusion, as opposed to giving it to them directly.
Ask yourself how pure your own motives are. Whose best interests are you pushing? Is there a self-interest motive that you're pursuing? (pg. 55)
 
From: Sobel, A. and Panas, J. (2014). Power Relationships: 26 Irrefutable Laws for building Extraordinary Relationships.
Posted In:
Tags:
Comments: 0
By: Beth Flynn, Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
"Managers and leaders are central to employees' experience of work and their experience within the organization.  Leaders are always part of a broader organizational culture and the overall culture will outlast any individual leader's efforts.  Over time, leaders will shape the culture, but this takes years and affecting this type of change is more similar to steering a tanker - slow and deliberate.
 
On the other hand, it is also true that leaders create their own subcultures within the company.  For example, an organization may be generally very command and control in its operation, requiring adherence to rules and hierarchy for decision making.  Within that culture, a leader may behave in a way that is very participative, asking team members for input and making decisions that are more greatly influenced by employees.  The subculture of the team can exist within the broader framework.
 
As another example of the leadership paradox, a broader organization may tout plenty of employee choice making, personal discretion, and freedom, but within that culture, a leader may manage team members closely, checking work, checking quality, and checking work process.  Leaders create their own cultures, and the cultures leaders create are often mirrors of their own personalities.  People join a company because the nature of the job and work.  People leave a company because of the leader.  One's direct supervisor is one of the most essential factors in personal experience of an organization, job or work-life supports."
 
Have you left a job due to the impact a boss had on you?  What were the behaviors of the supervisor that caused you to leave?
 
From:  Brower, T. (2014).  Bring work to life by bring life to work: a guide for leaders and organizations.  Bibliomotion,https://bibliomotion.com/
By: Beth Flynn, Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
The leader is the most important person in any organization.  The leader sets the tone by the way he/she talks, behaves, responds to others, and treats people every day.  People tend to "follow the leader" in that they imitate or mimic the behavior of the leader towards others.  When the leader treats other people with courtesy and respect, everyone eventually begins treating coworkers with the same courtesy and respect.
 
There are specific behaviors that leaders can practice each day, and in each interaction, to make people feel good about themselves.  When you deliberately take the time and make the effort to build self-esteem in other people and simultaneously the fears that hold people back from putting their whole hears into their work, a peak performance work environment blooms naturally around you, like flowers in the spring (Tracy, 2011, p. 68).  
 
What are some practices you use to help others feel good about themselves?
 
From:  Tracy, B (2011).  Full engagement: inspire, motivate, and bring out the best in your people.  New York: AMACOM
Posted In:
Tags:
Comments: 0
By: Beth Flynn, Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
"Not one of us is free of it.  We all have moments when we question our ability to succeed and our ability to make good decisions.  Why? Because we can't know the future.  Winners feel doubt just as often as anybody else.  They understand you have to earn success.  They know you can't be haphazard if you want to make progress toward your most important goals.  These truths inevitably lead to questions about their ability to succeed.
 
If you aren't on guard, though, those moments can expand and can kill your spirit.  They can demoralize.  They can give us a faulty perspective.  They can distract us and disrupt our forward momentum.  They can waste our precious time.  The clock is ticking and you can spend your time worrying and doubting or you can spend your time working.
 
When you allow doubt to send you into a tailspin of indecision and hesitation, you invite fear.  You grind to a halt.  All work stops, and with no work, you have no hope (p. 14-15)."  
 

 

 
 
From:  Weidel, L. (2015).  Serial winner: five actions to create your cycle of success.  Austin, TX:Greenleaf Book Group Press.
 
 
 
Posted In:
Tags: leaders, leadership, winners
Comments: 0
By: Beth Flynn, Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
"Abundance encourages people to bring all of themselves - their passions, their creativity, and their talents - to work.  It creates a context for joy at work.  Abundance provides the opportunity for people to express themselves more fully at work.  A leader creates abundance when he provides for employees to engage in the work that inspires them.  A leader creates abundance when he connects the employee's efforts to a broader purpose.  As workers, we all want to build cathedrals, not just lay bricks.  Abundance is when we can look up from our brick-laying and see the cathedral that will result from our collective efforts.
 
Don't misunderstand, abundance does not mean that companies are making additional demands of workers, it means that organizations provide for workers so they can bring their best to their jobs (p. 9)."
 
What are some ideas you have to help build abundance at work?
 
From:  Brower, T. (2014).  Bring work to life by bring life to work: a guide for leaders and organizations.  Bibliomotion,https://bibliomotion.com/
 
Posted In:
Tags:
Comments: 0