Tag: Creativity

Journey To Leadership

4 Essential Learning Skills Every Leader Needs To Know Right Now

by journeytoleadershipblog1 Comment on 4 Essential Learning Skills Every Leader Needs To Know Right Now

Throughout our life, we never stop learning.

By continually learning, you grow and open yourself up to new experiences and ideas.

Acquiring good learning skills builds up your confidence and your willingness to explore.

Wondering what are the essential learning skills that every leader should know?

4 Essential Learning Skills Every Leader Needs To Know Right Now #leaders #leadership #leadershipskills #learningskills #communicationskills #organizationskills #creativity #creativethinking #criticalthinking https://journeytoleadershipblog.com

What are learning skills? 

Learning skills are thinking skills and habits that you acquire in your childhood to help you learn and that you can perfect in adulthood.

Furthermore, learning skills is all about processing useful information, acquiring knowledge, self-regulating and making a sound decision.

Learning include reading, listening, focusing, remembering, confronting your understanding, practicing what you have learned, using the right tools and using time effectively.

1. Critical Thinking Skills

Learning is acquiring knowledge but not all knowledge is useful or will have a positive impact.

Therefore, leaders must develop critical thinking, become attentive to details, be selective of the knowledge that you acquire and store in your brain.

They must be able to think critically, make their own opinion and think independently, create their own experiences and increase self-awareness. They must also be able to classify and track their thoughts and ideas.

Furthermore, leaders must be able to break down, analyze, compare and understand a situation, an event or concept in order to reach a conclusion and take a measured decision.

2. Creative Thinking Skills

Creative thinking is the ability to be creative and to generate ideas.

With a sense of creativity, leaders are authentic, curious, open-minded, adapt easily and are capable of expressing themselves.

They are able to innovate, brainstorm with others, creatively assess a problem and come up with new and out of the box solutions.

3. Communication Skills

There are several ways to convey a message. Some leaders enjoy public speaking, some one on one conversations and others prefer reading or writing down their thoughts.

Leaders must be able to describe, share, argue, persuade, clarify, defend an idea, explain themselves and reach a solid conclusion. That way, they confront their own ideas and understanding.

They are also able to actively listen, evaluate an idea and engage with it.

4. Organizational skills

Organizational skills include time management, goal setting, schedule and event planning, productivity tracking, and progress measurement.

When leaders are organized, they tend to favor a clean and tidy workspace.

Being organized helps them alleviate the mental load, organize their thoughts, focus on the tasks at hand and meet their deadlines.

Organized leaders run the day and don’t let the day run them.

Last Words Of Advice!

Everybody learns differently.

It becomes useful to identify your preferred learning style as soon as possible.

 

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

 

 

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Journey To Leadership

8 Ways Travelling Improves Your Leadership

by journeytoleadershipblog1 Comment on 8 Ways Travelling Improves Your Leadership

I tend to travel at moments when everything in my life are chaotic or going down hill. Why? Because I gain better perspective when I push my boundaries and step outside my personal situation.

Travelling can indeed be a wonderful and unique experience.

It can also be a way to increase your leadership, change your mindset, improve your self-awareness and discover better principles.

Wondering how can travelling make you a better leader?

There are a lot of positive effects to travelling.

8 Ways Travelling Improves Your Leadership #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #selfimprovement #selfawareness #selfesteem #confidence #travel

1. You discover yourself

When you travel, nobody really knows you so you are free to try and embody new versions of yourself.

That is because by travelling, you remove yourself from the pressures of society and from the expectations that your parents or circle have placed on you.

You find ways to become a better leader for yourself and your team.

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. - Henry Miller Click To Tweet

2. You renew your mind

You change your perspective, gain more clarity and start thinking differently.

Indeed, travelling quiets the negative voices in your head and rewires your brain.

Travelling is an opportunity to go into deep introspection, to discipline yourself, to challenge your beliefs and assumptions, and redefine your values and priorities.

You are too absorbed by the new environments to stay stuck in the past, anxious about the future, or stuck in your head.

3. You get out of your comfort zone

One of my favorite things about travelling is taking risks and getting out of your comfort zone. It requires a lot of confidence and a taste for the unknown.

It gives you the opportunity to try new things and try out different versions of themselves.

Not everybody has the opportunity to travel. To be kind to your wallet, you can travel to the city next door.

4. You build up self-confidence

Investment in travel is an investment in yourself. - Matthew Karsten Click To Tweet

When I travel, I don’t like making plans in general.

I rather wander, roam through the streets and get lost so I can ask people my way back, practice a different language, find hidden treasures and test my ability to be resourceful.

Getting lost and finding my way back gives me more confidence in my abilities to successfully take care of myself. I can then return home with the conviction that I can solve anything I put my mind to.

5. You get healed

Travelling provides healing for your entire being and reminds you that there is still beauty in the world.

  • You acquire the opportunity to get to know yourself better, to try different things, to get out of your attributed role.
  • You become present and aware of your surroundings.
  • You listen to yourself more and get in touch with your intuition.
  • You treasure your experiences more than material things. Your positive memories will help you overcome difficult times.

6. You balance your work and life

Leaders don’t always have time to relax and travel as much as they would want to. Travelling improves your work-life balance because:

  • You don’t have to worry so much about work and your coworkers.
  • You remove yourself from toxicity and enjoy people who enjoy you.
  • You break from your routine and from zombie mode.
  • You take a well deserved break from your drama.
  • You recenter yourself and you realize that we are all human beings.
You lose sight of things… and when you travel, everything balances out. - Daranna Gidel Click To Tweet

7. You develop cultural sensitivity

Through my years of travel, I have seen people travelling so they could feel superior and turn their nose up at people from different cultures who live their lives differently.

They basically use travelling as a way to validate their beliefs of superiority.

The reality is travelling is a way to open your mind and experience new cultures.

  • You gain more knowledge.
  • You become less judgmental.
  • You become culturally sensitive.
  • You may find where you truly belong.
  • You understand that different is good.
  • You believe that everything or everyone has their qualities and their flaws.
  • You acknowledge that most people don’t fall under all the stereotypes.
When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting. - Clint Borgen Click To Tweet

8. You grow social Skills

Travelling increases your curiosity, creativity and social skills.

You meet interesting people on your journey who speak different languages but who have the same life experiences and the same intentions.

Beyond the language barrier, you become self-reliant, you value people and make an effort to understand other people.

Last Words Of Advice!

Try travelling alone if you can.

When you travel alone, you make your own decisions, you learn yourself, you are responsible for yourself and you do what you want.

Finally, you learn to value yourself and enjoy yourself alone. 

once a year go some place you've never been before - Dalai Lama Click To Tweet

 

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

 

 

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Journey To Leadership

The Importance Of Forgiveness In Leadership

by journeytoleadershipblogLeave a Comment on The Importance Of Forgiveness In Leadership

When you are a leader, you go head first into battle, experience joy, success, hurt, failure and disappointment.

Contrary to popular belief, being prone to forgiveness does not make you a weak leader or doesn’t mean that you have forgotten.

Forgiving someone who has harmed you is some way is difficult because you might think that you are giving them a pass, that you are being weak, you are giving in too easily, giving them your power, you don’t love or respect yourself.

Actually, by not forgiving they are holding power over you because nursing negative emotions is only harming you.

Wondering how important is forgiveness in leadership and how to forgive?

The Importance Of Forgiveness In Leadership #leader #leadership #forgiveness #peaceofmind #selfimprovement #selfdevelopment #selfawareness #serenity #JourneyToLeadership

The benefits of forgiveness

Forgiveness is a powerful and efficient tool.

Forgiveness is an often overlooked, undervalued gift but it requires strength, character, emotional intelligence and self awareness. Forgiveness is an active process.

It allows you to reach a state of inner calm to put negative memories at rest and get rid of negative emotions. Indeed, after forgiving, you feel re-energized, empowered, free and present.

In addition, forgiveness helps to resolve conflicts, move forward, promote creativity, build trust and relationships.

Forgiving leaders encourage risk taking, authenticity, collaboration and dissenting voices in the workplace.

Lack of forgiveness in the workplace can heavily affect employee morale, retention, productivity, satisfaction, innovation and cohesion. It can create a toxic workplace.

How to forgive?

People have different values and motives in life. They would not hesitate to hurt you to get what they want, to shift blame and judge. To forgive:

  • Avoid shifting blame. Take accountability for your actions and take back control of your emotions. When you forgive, you are no longer a victim nor do you become a persecutor.

  • Acknowledge what has happened, be compassionate with yourself and give yourself time to recover.
  • Own and learn from your mistakes before you make them again.
  •  Remember that you cannot control the behavior of others and you can only control yours.

  • In the words of Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements, don’t take it personally. It is hard to cope when someone’s anger is directed at you. However, their bad behavior has nothing to do with you but everything to do with their insecurities or they are doing the best with the tools that they have.

  • See an opportunity to grow and see this as a challenge.

  • Understand that all situations can be resolved. Do what you can, if you can, to repair the situation. If you need to talk it through, have an honest conversation.

  • Envision what will happen to your emotions, mind, self esteem if you don’t forgive.

  • As a leader, encourage forgiveness in the workplace and be a model for forgiveness.

  • Don’t let this negative event or negative emotion define you.

  • Focus on the positive. When we are pushed in a negative situation we can only see the person in a negative light.

  • Create new positive memories. Leave the past in the past.
  • Be grateful for that experience.

Last Words Of Advice!

The hardest thing is self forgiveness. Our inner voice is most critical of our decisions, actions and thoughts.

If you are the one who has hurt someone else:

  • Be honest with yourself
  • Forgive yourself.
  • Remember that what goes around comes around.
  • Think of how you would want to be treated in that moment and if you would have wanted a second chance.

 

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

 

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Journey To Leadership

The Importance Of Creativity In Leadership

by journeytoleadershipblogLeave a Comment on The Importance Of Creativity In Leadership

Organizations often face challenges that cannot be handle the traditional way.

Leaders quickly realize that creativity is the skill that will remove challenges, increase the success rate and will optimistically carry their organization into the future.

Wondering how to boost your creativity?

The Importance Of Creativity In Leadership #innovation #creativity #leadership #risks #change #passions #talents #strengths #mindfulness

What is creativity?

Creativity doesn’t belong to the select few.

Creativity is the process of producing something out of nothing, of combining older ideas, of bringing imagination and ideas into reality.

Creativity is intelligence having fun. - Albert Einstein Click To Tweet

The benefits of creativity in leadership

In leadership, creativity is the mindset that improves workplace culture. Leaders who are creative:

  • Are self-aware, authentic and passionate.
  • Are solution-oriented and insightful.
  • Are walking inspirations and are confident about their abilities.
  • Make easy connections and see possibilities where there aren’t any.
  • Understand that the world has changed and is changing.
  • Think outside the box and challenge the status quo.
  • Need motivation and autonomy. 

How to boost your creativity?

Creativity is harder than we think but plays an important role in job satisfaction. There are a few ways that you can boost your creativity. 

1. Take time off to restore yourself

Restoring yourself means that you know who you are and that you understand that society can erode your authentic self. Taking time off will help you to:

  • Get out of your boring routine.
  • Let your imagination run wild.
  • Practice meditation, sleep and rest your mind.
  • Prepare yourself for your next move.
  • Exercise. Exercising will help you clear your mind and energize you.
  • Put some distance between your personal project and your thoughts.
  • Organize your day and work at hours where your creativity is the highest.
  • Enjoy solitude. Solitude allows introspection and introspection triggers creativity.

2. Change your habits

It is good to change your way of doing things from time to time. In order to renew your though pattern:

  • Go somewhere or try something new.
  • Try things without fear or shame.
  • Say yes to different opportunities more often.
  • Expose yourself to things that inspire you and gain more experience.
  • Build up new good habits. Building new habits will allow your body to go on autopilot while your mind is free to wander.

For leaders to become original, they would have to know what has already been created.

3. Don’t avoid failures

Failure happens to everyone and is inevitable.

Therefore, take more risks and learn the rules so you can break them.

In addition, laugh at yourself and welcome constructive criticism.

Fail as much as you can and fail early because even when you fail, you can always start over and the lessons learned will make you smarter.

4. Follow your passions and talents

Your passions and talents come easy to you, can be sustained on long periods of time and will fuel your creativity.

Your passion will inspire someone else to be creative. To identify your passions and talents:

5. Work on your skills

Acquiring expertise in your area of interest will be swift and will liberate your mind so that your creativity can takeover.

A writer who has never learnt to read or write cannot express his creativity.

A fashion designer who hasn’t learnt different sowing techniques cannot attain their highest potential. 

A leader who has never learnt to communicate efficiently will have a hard time sharing their ideas.

6. Keep on open mind

When you want to be creative, it becomes critical to keep an open mind for whatever you do:

  • Have an insatiable level of curiosity.
  • Listen to the ideas that come to you.
  • Read books, listen to music, watch shows that will inspire you and that do not necessarily pertain to your are of interest.
  • Learn new skills. Learning new skills will give you the opportunity to explore.
  • Remove fear or other negative emotions that may block your thinking process.

7. Write down whatever comes to your mind

Ideas come to you at impromptu moments. It becomes handy to keep a notebook with you at all times so you can write them down as soon as possible.

To jumpstart your imagination, you can try brainstorming techniques or stare at a blank canvas as long as you need it. Blank canvas can be intimidating because there is an unlimited amount of outcomes.

When you are writing down your ideas, remember that there are no good or bad idea, just an unlimited number of ideas.

8. Monitor your surroundings

To get inspiration, you must surround yourself with creative people or with people from different backgrounds who hold different opinions.

You can also sit in public and observe the movement of people.

Last Words Of Advice!

It is one thing to be creative and another to maintain the creative process. You must learn yourself well and stay confident in your ability to create.

To maintain your creativity, first share your vision and ideas across your organization. Then, encourage others to come to you with ideas.

Is your organization doing enough to increase the creativity within the company?

 

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

 

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Journey To Leadership

13 Signs That You Are A Trailblazing Leader

by journeytoleadershipblogLeave a Comment on 13 Signs That You Are A Trailblazing Leader

Pioneering or trailblazing leaders are the firsts to do anything in any field.

Indeed, they initiate, innovate, explore and thrive in uncharted territory. They face obstacles before anyone else.

Furthermore, they are always learning, growing and getting out of their comfort zones.

Needless to say, the job of the pioneering or trailblazing leader is hard. 

Wondering what makes you a trailblazing leader?

13 Signs That You Are A Trailblazing Leader

13 Signs That You Are A Trailblazing Leader

Being a pioneer or trailblazer requires courage, grit, commitment and responsibility.

#1. You have a clear vision

You have a clear vision for your future.

Your vision is a dream that encompasses their values and morals, that seems unrealistic but that is yet anchored in reality, that is ingrained in your DNA.

You are confident about it and you can communicate it easily.

You aim to build a company culture that promotes curiosity, imagination and brainstorming.

However, you do not need to have a clear step by step plan.

In addition, you are always frustrated because your reality doesn’t match your vision. Your progress doesn’t seem enough and you believe that you can be better, do better, do more and do faster.

#2. You know your worth

You are aware of your strengths and weaknesses, of your limitations and your uniqueness.

You value your originality and you hate imitating others.

You don’t try to blend in because you understand your value resides in standing out.

#3. You are pathologically curious

You are eager to learn and cannot stop asking questions.

Without fearing repercussions, you ask questions that no one has never asked before.

You understand that the possibilities are endless and you are never done exploring them.

You experiment with things that excite or scare you. By facing your fears, you evolve and learn important information about yourself.

#4. You embrace change

You embrace change and innovation. Matter of fact, you love to lead in tumultuous waters, you are the first to say or do anything and you adapt easily to change.

Great leaders know that they have to embrace change in order to stay competitive and relevant.

Moreover, you see life as an adventure. For example, you are unafraid of uprooting and moving to a strange place.

You love experimenting, taking risks and can’t stand routine.

You enjoy trying new thing and seeing what will happen next.

#5. You are creative

You are creative and your need to create overpowers all your fears.

You can’t help that you:

  1. Require creative freedom.
  2. Are entirely consumed by your creations.
  3. Care more about the content than the format.
  4. Care more about creating than being right or clever.
  5. Care more about creating or innovating than selling or introducing it to the world.

#6. You need freedom

Your freedom means everything to you.

You hate structure, rules, paperwork because you believe that all these are processes stifle your creativity, delay your pioneering moves and slow you down.

#7. You challenge the status quo

You are unpredictable. Your forward-thinking disrupts, challenges the status quo and pushes people out of their comfort zone.

Consequently, your presence and your perspectives make people uncomfortable.

You wish that they can see what you see and understand what you believe in.

#8. You attract the right people

You love to explore and to meet new people.

A trailblazing leader goes first and leads by example. By going first, you will attract the right type of followers and you will be able to feed from their energy to keep pursuing your vision.

At the end, you will build a team that is unconventional but has the right skills to reach your vision.

#9. You take self-motivated action

You constantly take action and need to move forward.

Indeed, you are always on the move, looking for the next new thing. You are always looking for new opportunities.

Furthermore, you are self-motivated. You do not need someone to encourage you or push you towards your goals.

You are goal-oriented: you have a tendency to focus on your vision and unfortunately forget your relationships.

However, with your actions, you will inspire others to take action.

#10. You are resilient

You are persistent and resilient. You see challenges as opportunities and courageously face adversity.

You are also committed to your vision and are willing to see a problem through.

By now, You have thick skin because people have tried to shut you down so many times.

Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember, a kite rises against the wind rather than with it.” - Winston S. Churchill Click To Tweet

#11. You are solution-oriented

Because you usually blaze a trail, you have become resourceful and solution-oriented.

You are able to make quick decisions and bring new solutions to your organization by solely relying on your gut for the next direction to take.

In addition, you are able to find different solutions to one problem because you are confident about the future.

#12. You are optimistic

You stay positive as a life and leadership strategy.

You are optimistic and excited about all the possible positive outcomes.

Furthermore, you don’t complain. You understand that life is made of ups and downs, that complaining amplifies the issues and weighs you down.

#13. Your work ethic is unheard of

You have a strong work ethic.

You believe that if you put the work in, your vision will come to life.

You are committed to your vision and have laser focus.

Last Words Of Advice!

Remember, most people will feel uncomfortable in your presence because you question their reality and their systems of belief.

It becomes critical to remember who you are and what you stand for.

It becomes detrimental to be patient with people, to stand alone than to stand in the midst of people who group-think.

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.

Author

Brené Brown

by journeytoleadershipblog3 Comments on Brené Brown

MEET THE AUTHORBrené Brown is a PhD, a researcher at the University of Houston and the author of The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, and Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts..

Book Reviews

Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself By Henri Junttila

by journeytoleadershipblog1 Comment on Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself By Henri Junttila

Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself by Henri Junttila is a self-help book that encourages people to find their passion and get the life they want.

Finding your passion is about exploration, living the life of your dreams, getting out of your comfort zone, overcoming obstacles and bringing out your inner joy.

Passion is waking up energized and motivated to do the things you love. It means being able to persist through adversity.

To identify and live your passion, Henri Junttila poses 25 questions that will help you assess yourself, overcome roadblocks and successfully create your life goals.

Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself By Henri Junttila

Self-Assessment

First, you must get to know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, your interests.

Your definition of passion

According to Henri Junttila, you must first discover what the word passion means to you and what it means to people around you. You must also be able to envision yourself living a passionate life and find out how it feels to be passionate.

Keep in mind that your passion is personal, internal and intrinsic to your being. It is not what society, friends and family tell you it should be.

Talents, strengths and weaknesses

Everyone has a gift and it is your duty to find out what you are gifted at because most of the time, your passions lie within your gifts.

Besides, tapping into your strengths will make you a happier person. Not doing so will definitely make you feel miserable, out of focus, burnt out.

It is therefore detrimental to:

  • Explore every single one of your interests and natural inclinations. For example, what do you find yourself naturally talking about? People can have several passions. They should explore all of them and see which ones resonates the most.
  • Remind yourself of your dreams, strengths and passions as a child.
  • Analyze the reasons why you are interested in certain activities.
  • Evaluate the advice that is requested from you and the advice that you give.
  • Take strengths and weaknesses assessment tests.
  • Analyze your situation, how people feel about you.
  • Do things that are out of your comfort zone.
  • Value your natural gifts.
  • Find out how you can apply your strengths in different areas of your life.
  • Don’t take advice from people but instead follow your gut.
  • Strengthen the connection to your inner voice. Your intuition has your best interest and can never lead you astray.
  • Determine what angers and disturbs you so you can avoid settling for mediocrity.

Making A Life Plan

Goals ate milestones. They are there to measure your progress and your passion.

  • Figure out your life goals in five or ten years.
  • Identify the pros and the cons of success. Check if they are worthwhile and if you can tolerate them. Usually the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
  • Work like you will succeed and dream like you cannot fail.
  • Visualize your goals, yourself living a successful life and take the steps needed to achieve that.
  • Detail your plan and the life you want.
  • Improve your problem solving sills.
  • Don’t make assumptions.

Finding Your Passion and Self-sabotaging

We are sometimes our worst enemy. Our assumptions about people or about ourselves are hard to shift or to disable. And sometimes, they can hold us back.

To get rid of the debilitating assumptions that you make about yourself:

  • Find out what you hate, what would hinder you as a human being, what you wouldn’t do, what would go against your core values.
  • Trust your gut.
  • Don’t impose limits to your imagination.
  • Change your perspective on your problems.
  • Review your systems of belief and integrate the ideas needed to succeed.
  • Don’t listen to naysayers. This is hard because naysayers are mostly family and close friends who are afraid of facing their own realities and who are afraid that you will outgrow them.
  • Dream big but don’t settle.
  • Don’t give up on yourself and your dreams.
  • Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed.

Overcoming Factors Out Of Your Control

In life, there a numerous obstacles to success and to happiness: money, death and other factors.

Indeed, money or lack thereof is limiting. People need money to go after their passion, to recover from failure, to have the opportunity to explore, to remove fear.

However, finding your passion is all about being resilient and understanding that not everything is going to go your way. You must also:

  • Understand that to every problem there are multiple solutions.
  • Understand that nothing will never be perfect and that there is no right time to start.
  • Don’t be afraid of failure or of success. Work like you cannot fail.
  • Follow your passion whether you have money or not.
  • Even when facing obstacles or feeling stuck, take baby steps no matter what.
  • Think about your own death and the legacy you want to leave. Thinking about your own death will help you prioritize and focus on the essentials.

Review

Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself by Henri Junttila is a relatable, quick and easy to read book that helps you to get to know and love yourself just the way you are.

It is primarily written for people who feel lost in the world, who are fearful, who go through life without passion or without a clear purpose. The silver lining is that it’s never too late to find and follow your passions.

In Find Your Passion: 25 Questions You Must Ask Yourself, Henri Junttila was able to share all this useful information in such a concise book. He also provides us with additional insightful questions and a complete workbook, which makes the book completely unreadable without a paper and a pen.

It is imperative that you keep this book close by, that you take your time to answer these questions and that you don’t censor yourself. Your answers may not come to you at first but you can always revisit the book.

Be authentic with the world and with yourself and you will never fail.

Favorite quote(s)

When I see people limit themselves, I get angry. I see the potential in people, but they don’t do anything about it. They settle for mediocrity, and they believe they can’t do better.

Living a passionate life doesn’t happen overnight. It’s hard work, and it’s not as glamorous as people make it out to be. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go after it. It simply means that it takes more work than you’d expect.

Ratings 4/5

Author

Henri Junttila

Journey To Leadership

Acquiring Impressive Problem-Solving Skills In 6 Steps

by journeytoleadershipblog9 Comments on Acquiring Impressive Problem-Solving Skills In 6 Steps

Leaders are often faced with recurring issues in their personal and in their professional lives.

On a daily basis, they fight to retain talent, to keep their businesses alive, to keep up with the market, to increase their return on investment, to deal with clients, to evolve and to encourage growth.

Problems arise when there is a discrepancy between reality and expectations, when leaders are unable to successfully reach their goals.

Their ability to anticipate and to solve problems will determine their success and will increase their chances for promotion.

Wondering how to acquire problem-solving skills?

Acquiring Impressive Problem-Solving Skills In 6 Steps

What is problem-solving?

Problem-solving is a cognitive skill that is useful in challenging, problematic and uncertain situations that require resolution.

Problem-solving is uncomfortable, takes time, requires practice and need constant monitoring. This intuitive skill is also sharpened by mistakes and failures.

Furthermore, problems encourage growth and change in us. That is why problem-solving requires facing inner demons.

It also helps us acquire innovative skills, people skills, communication skills, data gathering, conflict management and analytical skills.

How to actually solve problems?

Problem-solving gives leaders the opportunity to deal with change, to handle conflict, to delegate, to humbly ask for help.

Leaders who are unable to effectively solve problems lack knowledge in their respective fields, don’t establish practical methods, don’t commit to one solution, fail to implement their vision or to understand the problem all together.

STEP #1 Work on your character

You cannot control most of the situations that you will face in life. However, you can control how you react to them. It is therefore necessary to work on your character and to:

  1. Know yourself, trust your intuition and understand that your ideas are valuable.
  2. Be mindful that problems arise every day and that you cannot solve everything all at once.
  3. Write down all the rules and core values that guide you so you can remember them in time of need.
  4. Be open-minded, explore other fields than your own and to frequent people from other industries.
  5. Educate yourself on your business. Read books and articles on your field.
  6. Avoid jumping to conclusions. Challenge your assumptions before you restrict your opportunities
  7. Be patient but take action before it’s too late and before the opportunity expires.
  8. Pay attention to other people’s opinion but don’t worry too much about the naysayers.
  9. Admit if you have made a mistake. Great leaders are able to face issues without shifting blame and shifting values.
  10. Embrace change and avoid criticizing new ideas.
  11. Welcome failure. Don’t beat yourself up or don’t blame yourself for failure. Most successes or most innovations have broken through from failures.

STEP #2 Defining & Understanding the problem

Problems are synonymous with difficulty, issue, trouble, worry, complication, obstacle or setback. Problems trigger fight or flight response when handling a problematic situations.

There is no need to immediately appear decisive or to impress people. You must first define and understand the problem:

  1. Get the information about the problem.
  2. Identify the complexity, the symptoms, effects and root causes of the problem.
  3. Take time to reflect on your situation and to observe.
  4. Talk to the people implicated in the situation.
  5. Look for patterns and for trends.
  6. Find analogies to your situation that can help spark ideas.
  7. Reverse the problem: find the opposite problem or envision a worse problem.

STEP #3 Solutioning

Anticipating problems is the best option. But, the key is to staying focused or finding a solution. You must be able to study all the possible solutions of the problem:

  1. Explore all ideas even if you think that they won’t work.
  2. Suggest solutions that would make the problem worse.
  3. Think about your past experiences when you have been put in sticky situations. It can be a conflict with your coworkers, It can be a discussion with your clients or situations with your family.
  4. Look at what is being done by experts and evaluate the opposite solution.
  5. Ask for help from people around you. You can use brainstorming, mind mapping or road mapping techniques.
  6. Remove yourself from the situation to clear your mind and gain a different perspective.
  7. Break down the situation into simpler components.
  8. Write down pros and cons of the solutions.
  9. Clarify the criteria that your solution must meet.
  10. Test the feasibility of the solution.
  11. Organize your thoughts and pick the solution that will maximize your return.

STEP #4 Making a decision

When you have evaluated all the solutions, it’s time to make a decision. One decision is better than none.

  1. Look up the “unwritten rules“ that you are about to break before making a decision.
  2. Weigh in the consequences of your decisions. Rapid decisions can have serious implications, especially if you are a leader. So, be aware of the economic, social, political challenges of your decisions.
  3. Luckily, the leader does not have to resolve every problem on their own. To make better decisions, involve your team in the decision-making process. However, the final decisions is up to you.
  4. Seek to solve the problem long-term.
  5. Take the necessary time to make the right decision. You don’t need to impress or to act fast, you need to act right.

STEP #5 Executing the decision

After finding the perfect solution and making your decision, start implementing it:

  1. Set goals and deadlines that align with your goals.
  2. Keep your goals in mind.
  3. Focus on the outcomes of the solution and visualize the best scenario.

STEP #6 Measuring your progress & Monitoring the problem

Unfortunately, problems don’t solve themselves and can grow as time passes by. If the roots of the problem still persist:

  1. Assess the impact of your current decision.
  2. Reward yourself if your solution is bringing positive results.
  3. If your plan doesn’t work, cut the losses and get back up.
  4. Ask for additional help. 
  5. Execute your plan B if you have one. Revisit the problem, start over the solving process otherwise.
  6. Take a break before moving on to the next problem.

Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!

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