The New Years are a time when leaders reflect on their past year, past behavior and past achievements.
Usually, they meditate on their future goals, future actions and their future selves.
Leaders think about self-improvement,
life lessons, tend to shift priorities and renew their mindset.
Below, we have gathered a few questions to help guide leaders through the process.
Wondering whar are the questions that every leader should ponder upon this Year?
1. How would you describe your best and most authentic self?
2. What would you say is your main purpose in life?
3. What are you most grateful for?
4. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
5. What do you want your achievements to be this year?
6. What is your idea of success?
7. Which habits, qualities and leadership skills would you like to acquire by the end of the year?
8. Which projects would you want to create, join or complete?
9. How would you like to spend your free time?
10. Who and what do you value most?
11. Are you willing to step out your comfort zone?
12. Which habits energize you and improve your mindset?
13. What are your overall motivations?
14. What was the best thing that happened last year?
15. What was the most challenging thing that happened last year and what did you learn from it?
16. What would you have done differently?
17. What do you wish to let go of that no longer serves you?
18. What are your emotional triggers and what can you do about them?
19. What and who keep you present?
20. What boundaries will you be setting?
21. Are you making good use of your time?
22. What are your main core values?
23. Are you the best leader you can be?
24. What is your ideal life?
25. What are you most excited for this year?
Last Words Of Advice!
Take it one day at a time…
Honestly answering one question at a time will help you assess where you were and where you are heading this year. 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.
We are often faced with stressful situations in our personal and professional lives…
Unfortunately, perception is reality.
That means that our perception of the situation will most of the time determines our reaction.
Shifting perception doesn’t mean switching viewpoint or distorting the truth but broadening your understanding of all facets of the situation.
Wondering how to shift your perspective?
Perception is a combination of the information collected, your experience and system of belief.
To shift it, there are some steps that you can take.
1. Put some distance between you and the drama
Sometimes, we get caught up in negative situations whether we want to or not or we stay in toxic environments longer than we should.
Removing yourself from that environment is the best way to change perspective.
If you are consistently surrounded by negative people, your thoughts will sooner or later become negative.
You may wonder whether you are creating or amplifying the negativity but if you remove yourself from it and it still goes on, you have nothing to do with it.
You probably just got caught up in someone else’s crazy.
2. Change your programming
You must be aware of the type of content that you allow to program your subconscious mind.
If you aren’t able to find the perspective you are looking for, seek out content that comforts you and that is similar to the perspective you wish to achieve or to the attitude you wish to emulate.
You may need to gather different sources of positivity around you like podcasts, books or movies.
3. Pay attention to self-talk
You are in control of your thoughts and of the way you react to situations.
In order to help your self-talk, you can use words of affirmation.
4. Adjust your expectations
Most drama in life comes from having too high expectations for people.
If someone has disappointed you or created unnecessary drama, you need to reset and lower your expectations for them.
5. Limit your time
If you are unable to physically remove yourself from drama, you can limit your time there while attempting to find a solution.
By doing so, you will gradually:
Prioritize the essentials.
Understand that everything is temporary.
Acknowledge that you don’t have to stay in it longer than necessary.
6. Find the lesson
Find the lesson and focus on the positives.
Finding the lesson in a negative situation allows you to look past yourself, to grow and to not be the victim.
7. Take a step back
Sometimes, we create our own drama or participate at some level in someone else’s.
According to Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements, taking someone else’s drama personally will only make things worse.
It then helps to take a step back to gather yourself and to evaluate the situation.
By doing so, you can also make sure that the story you tell yourself isn’t laced with elements of your past.
8. Change your reaction
You may no be able to shift your perspective just yet but you can change your reaction.
The truth is if you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same result.
So, when faced with a situation that seems consistently challenging, try doing something different.
It may not solve the situation but you will get a different result and therefore gain more perspective.
9. See the bigger picture
Drama and the way we think about it can cause serious repercussions on your life.
Visualizing the bigger picture reframes the negative situation and reduces its impact.
Will this matter in the long run? In 5 days, 5 months or 5 years, will you remember this person or that job?
10. Forgive yourself
Staying in a negative situation, talking to negative people or walking around thinking about negative situation is damaging to your health and will only amplify the drama.
So, take the time to process the negative emotions, forgive yourself for staying in a bad situation for too long and hold on to the glimmer of hope.
Last Words Of Advice!
The circumstances of the situation you are dealing with depend on your perspective and your reaction.
Shifting perspective is a mind trick that allows you to better face challenges and that relies on the principal that you have the power to control your thoughts.
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.
Atomic Habits are small habits that are essential to your overall improvement and that seem insignificant at first sight but that can create powerful outcomes if practiced regularly…
Atomic Habits help you grow in confidence, overcome setbacks and fulfill your potential.
Habits create freedom by removing the need to make decisions about simple tasks and by allowing your mind to focus on other challenges.
1. Improvements & Atomic Habits
There is tremendous value in improving incrementally thanks to the power of small habits.
Truthfully, incremental improvements are not noticeable right away but become meaningful and make a difference in the long run.
That’s because, small good habits compound themselves into big results and bad habits into toxic results. However, these habits will place you on the path to success.
The only thing, to see the results of your habits, to track your progress, you need to implement these habits long enough in order to cross what James Clear calls the Plateau of Latent Potential.
To get over the Plateau of Latent Potential, you need to avoid setting goals. Instead, you may have to set up a system to make actionable progress and to create better habits.
2. Building & Changing Habits
Changing habits is difficult because we try to change the wrong thing or we try to change the wrong way.
Furthermore, change is especially difficult when your identity is in direct conflict with the habit you want to develop, if you are too attached to your identity or believe that your identity is set in stone.
To change the right way, you need to make a shift in your identity, rework your system of belief and make this habit become an intrinsic part of your identity.
In turn, your identity will gradually be molded by your habits and the belief that you have the power to change whichever habit you want.
3. The Four Laws of Behavior Change
Before trying to change, we must be aware of the old habits that have held you back and have most likely become automatic and unconscious.
You can make a list of your habits and ask yourself objectively whether or not these habits help you become the person you want to be. You don’t need to evaluate, congratulate or criticize yourself while doing so.
To create better habits, you can follow the Four Laws of Behavior Change:
Make the habit obvious
Make the habit attractive
Make the habit easy
Make the habit satisfying
1. Make the habit obvious
You can make it obvious by clarifying the habits you want to acquire.
You have to make it clear when, where and how you want this new habit to take place.
You can set your habits at a particular time and location, you can group them with other habits or you can set up your environment to stimulate the said habit and to encourage self-discipline.
2. Make the habit attractive
Habits become more attractive if you can associate them with things you already enjoy, if you surround yourself with people who already have that attractive habit or if you shift your perspective and change the way you talk to yourself.
Making your habits attractive motivates you to act because you definitively expect a reward.
3. Make the habit easy
To build up a habit, it is important to practice. To make practicing effective, you must make it easy because it is human nature to preserve energy, reduce the amount of work and follow the Law of Least Effort.
Therefore, to make a habit easy, you canu must make it easy because it is human nature to preserve energy, reduce the amount of work and follow the Law of Least Effort.
Therefore, to make a habit easy, you can remove any element of friction associated with the habit, set up your environment to ease yourself into the habit or practice a small habit for at least 2 minutes that will progressively grow into the habit that you desire.
4. Make the habit satisfying
People are more likely to repeat a habit if the experience was satisfying.
However, people often look for immediate satisfaction even if most satisfactions in society are delayed and even if a fundamental truth for success states that delayed gratification leads to greater rewards.
So to build a successful habit, you need to ensure to receive immediate gratification once in a while.
Review
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear shares his traumatic story of how he recovered in his youth from an accident and how he realized, through this experience, that small good habits can help you overcome setbacks and fulfill your potential.
Moreover, it shows you that if the reason for building a habit is strong enough then you can bear anything to succeed.
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones should be called “How to develop the best habits the best way possible”. Every single sentence made for a great quote.
This book has been eye opening in understanding my habits and their in the affirmation of my identity.
Very insightful, it makes you analyze your present, think about the meaning and the impact of your actions on your future life. To develop new habits is very much a self-awareness exercise.
In addition, James Clear provides fundamental principles that you can rely on. He teaches you how to provoke good habits and destroy bad ones, to shift your focus from your goals towards building a structure, system and habits to achieve said goals.
I recommend it for anyone who is struggling to get it together and don’t know where to start. For anyone seeking to rework their habits, it is imperative to get an accountability partner, track your habits and measure your progress.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny
decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots
entrench themselves and branches grow.
A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
Our preference for instant gratification reveals an important truth about success:
because of how we are wired, most people will spend all day chasing quick hits of
satisfaction. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. If you’re willing to wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition and often get a bigger payoff. As the saying goes, the last mile is always the least crowded.
To understand your own habits and to gain power over them, leaders need to identify these triggers, routine and rewards…
Once these habits have been understood, leaders will be able to take a destructive habit and embed a good one.
Wondering how to give up destructive habits?
1. Identify the What?
At the core of every habit, there are a triggers, a routine and a reward.
The What consists in the routine, in the behavior you would like to change.
2. Identify the Why?
The next step is answering Why? It includes figuring out what gets you to behave the way you do, why it drives the havit, why it procures satisfaction and which benefits you reap from it.
Often times, we develop patterns of habits without even noticing it.
We are not conscious of our own behavioral triggers or even of the rewards we are seeking.
3. Identify the How?
Identifying the How involves identifying your triggers.
Triggers can be a particular location, time, person, an emotion or another habit.
Whenever you feel the urge to indulge in a bad habit, take a moment to breathe and to write down your triggers.
Last words of advice!
Changing habits can be difficult and take longer than expected.
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.
Atomic Habits are small habits that are essential to your overall improvement and that seem insignificant at first sight but that can create powerful outcomes if practiced regularly…
Atomic Habits help you grow in confidence, overcome setbacks and fulfill your potential.
Habits create freedom by removing the need to make decisions about simple tasks and by allowing your mind to focus on other challenges.
1. Improvements & Atomic Habits
There is tremendous value in improving incrementally thanks to the power of small habits.
Truthfully, incremental improvements are not noticeable right away but become meaningful and make a difference in the long run.
That’s because, small good habits compound themselves into big results and bad habits into toxic results. However, these habits will place you on the path to success.
The only thing, to see the results of your habits, to track your progress, you need to implement these habits long enough in order to cross what James Clear calls the Plateau of Latent Potential.
To get over the Plateau of Latent Potential, you need to avoid setting goals. Instead, you may have to set up a system to make actionable progress and to create better habits.
2. Building & Changing Habits
Changing habits is difficult because we try to change the wrong thing or we try to change the wrong way.
Furthermore, change is especially difficult when your identity is in direct conflict with the habit you want to develop, if you are too attached to your identity or believe that your identity is set in stone.
To change the right way, you need to make a shift in your identity, rework your system of belief and make this habit become an intrinsic part of your identity.
In turn, your identity will gradually be molded by your habits and the belief that you have the power to change whichever habit you want.
3. The Four Laws of Behavior Change
Before trying to change, we must be aware of the old habits that have held you back and have most likely become automatic and unconscious.
You can make a list of your habits and ask yourself objectively whether or not these habits help you become the person you want to be. You don’t need to evaluate, congratulate or criticize yourself while doing so.
To create better habits, you can follow the Four Laws of Behavior Change:
Make the habit obvious
Make the habit attractive
Make the habit easy
Make the habit satisfying
1. Make the habit obvious
You can make it obvious by clarifying the habits you want to acquire.
You have to make it clear when, where and how you want this new habit to take place.
You can set your habits at a particular time and location, you can group them with other habits or you can set up your environment to stimulate the said habit and to encourage self-discipline.
2. Make the habit attractive
Habits become more attractive if you can associate them with things you already enjoy, if you surround yourself with people who already have that attractive habit or if you shift your perspective and change the way you talk to yourself.
Making your habits attractive motivates you to act because you definitively expect a reward.
3. Make the habit easy
To build up a habit, it is important to practice. To make practicing effective, you must make it easy because it is human nature to preserve energy, reduce the amount of work and follow the Law of Least Effort.
Therefore, to make a habit easy, you canu must make it easy because it is human nature to preserve energy, reduce the amount of work and follow the Law of Least Effort.
Therefore, to make a habit easy, you can remove any element of friction associated with the habit, set up your environment to ease yourself into the habit or practice a small habit for at least 2 minutes that will progressively grow into the habit that you desire.
4. Make the habit satisfying
People are more likely to repeat a habit if the experience was satisfying.
However, people often look for immediate satisfaction even if most satisfactions in society are delayed and even if a fundamental truth for success states that delayed gratification leads to greater rewards.
So to build a successful habit, you need to ensure to receive immediate gratification once in a while.
Review
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear shares his traumatic story of how he recovered in his youth from an accident and how he realized, through this experience, that small good habits can help you overcome setbacks and fulfill your potential.
Moreover, it shows you that if the reason for building a habit is strong enough then you can bear anything to succeed.
Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones should be called “How to develop the best habits the best way possible”. Every single sentence made for a great quote.
This book has been eye opening in understanding my habits and their in the affirmation of my identity.
Very insightful, it makes you analyze your present, think about the meaning and the impact of your actions on your future life. To develop new habits is very much a self-awareness exercise.
In addition, James Clear provides fundamental principles that you can rely on. He teaches you how to provoke good habits and destroy bad ones, to shift your focus from your goals towards building a structure, system and habits to achieve said goals.
I recommend it for anyone who is struggling to get it together and don’t know where to start. For anyone seeking to rework their habits, it is imperative to get an accountability partner, track your habits and measure your progress.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow.
A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
Our preference for instant gratification reveals an important truth about success: because of how we are wired, most people will spend all day chasing quick hits of satisfaction. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. If you’re willing to wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition and often get a bigger payoff. As the saying goes, the last mile is always the least crowded.
Building a coaching habit, as difficult as it is, is an “essential leadership behavior” that should be adopted by most managers in order to:
Help their team unlock their true potential.
Make their team members more confident and therefore self-sufficient.
Provide purpose and value to their team on a daily basis.
Seven Essential Questions
Leaders and managers often admit that they don’t get or give effective coaching.
Most often, coaching is too theoretical, too boring, unpractical and not empowering enough. The greatest reason why coaching doesn’t seem to work is because it is difficult to shake off old habits.
There are seven questions that you can pose, one at a time, to coach someone in seven minutes or less. These seven questions will assist you in leading a full conversation and successfully coaching yourself and your team.
1. The Kickstart Question: “What’s on Your Mind?”
The Kickstart question breaks the ice and helps you start an opened and focused conversation.
It allows people to easily talk about the things that matter to them the most.
2. The AWE Question: “And What Else?”
The advice that leaders and managers gives is not always the best.
The AWE question restrains the need to give advice and instead helps you to stay quiet, curious and genuine.
It stops you from offering up advice in the form of a question.
3. The Focus Question: “What’s the Real Challenge Here for You?”
Leaders may want to always have the solution and be able to fix the problem without identifying it or having their team fix the problem.
The Focus questions helps you help your team identify the challenge that needs sorting out
4. The Foundation Question: “What Do You Want?”
It takes courage to ask for what you want knowing that the answer can be possible be no, that your question can be misinterpreted.
The Foundation question is a direct question that gives people the “responsibility for their own freedom” which is difficult to do.
5. The Lazy Question: “How Can I Help?”
Leaders and managers love to step in, be helpful and feel needed. However, this need to help gradually becomes the root of their frustration.
With the Lazy question, you get a clear and direct request. Then, you stop helping for no reason and you save up on time.
6. The Strategic Question: “If You’re Saying Yes to This, What Are You Saying No To?”
Leaders have to be clear about their boundaries which means they have to know how and when to say yes or no.
The Strategic question allows you to be clear about what you want, to be committed to your “yes” and definitive to your “no”.
7. The Learning Question: “What Was Most Useful for You?”
Leaders need to create learning spaces for their teams.
The Learning question is a great way for you to finish the conversation and leave people with a sense of empowerment.
Review
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier is easy and fast book to read, with great tips for managers who are looking to improve their leadership and communication skills.
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier is written for on the clock managers who have no time for long-winded trainings.
The seven questions are direct and allow leaders to minimize their stress and to improve the interaction with their team.
Furthermore, The Coaching Habit presents several tips and scenarii to help managersspecifically identify their emotional, situational or locational triggers. With The Coaching Habit, managers are able to pick up some new skills and define different habits in less than 10 minutes.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good As you think it is.
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?
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 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.
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.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith serves as a roadmap to help you get where you want to go in life and at work.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith helps people:
Get into leadership position.
Put your vision into action.
Identify and change bad habits.
Succeed and reach higher heights of success.
Understand that the same skills that got you previous success and won’t get you to the next level.
Why is it so hard to stop a bad habit?
It is not easy for successful people to change their behavior because their past successes have acted as positive reinforcement and have solidified some of your behaviors.
Furthermore, stopping a bad behavior isn’t as rewarded as you would think but it detrimental to success.
Indeed, we don’t get as much credit for stopping something as much as starting something.
Successful people either assume that:
They are right and everybody else is wrong.
People who want them to change are confused.
What you think about them doesn’t matter to them.
Their behavior is not hindering their success.
Changing their behavior is not worth it.
To get people to change their behavior, it is important to have them identify what they value most and somewhat “threaten” that value.
21 Habits That Got You Here But Won’t Get You There
Some people are successful in spite of their behavior.
Understand that you can be successful in spite of your flaws.
Recognize our bad behavior.
Examine your behaviors to see what feelings are attached to them.
Avoid attacking value to the bad behavior that you associate with success.
Find a reason to change, an example that will act as a positive reinforcement.
Marshall Goldsmith exhibits 21 behaviors that alienate people, that you need to stop and that are simple to correct.
Habit #1. Winning too much
In the case, the urge to win is strong and is triggered in any situation, whether it matters or not.
However, the need to win can limit your success because it can destroy relationships.
Habit #2. Adding too much value
Another habit of smart people is always feeling the need to add value to every discussion, to run the show.
They need to let everybody know that they already know or that they know a better way.
The need to add value is simple a variation of the need to win.
Habit #3. Passing judgment
Passing judgement pushes people away because people do not like to be rated or critiqued.
Imposing your standards on people, approving or disapproving of people’s decision will make you seem unwelcoming and disagreeable.
Habit #4. Making destructive comments
Some people make destructive comments without thinking: they put people down, they hurt them or assert themselves as their superiors.
This habit of making hurtful and sarcastic remarks quickly erodes teamwork and cooperation.
It can stem from a habit of always being candid or from a need to sound sharp and witty.
Habit #5. Starting with “No”, “But” or “However”
Starting with “No”, “But” or “However” says that whatever the other person is saying is wrong and what you are saying is right.
The use of these negative qualifiers comes from a need to win and defend your position.
Habit #6. Telling the world how smart we are
The need to demonstrate how smart you are is a variation of the need to win, to gain people’s admiration and to communicate that you are two steps ahead of everyone else.
Habit #7. Speaking when angry
Anger can be a valuable management tool but it does not guarantee how people will react to your emotional outbursts.
However, anger is not a leadership tool. Using anger as a tool says that you are out of control and that you cannot lead. It stifles your ability to change and brands you as being emotionally volatile.
Habit #8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”
Everybody avoids negative people in the workplace.
Negative people find problems to every one of your solutions.
They are not helpful. They don’t add value but they want to demonstrate that their knowledge is superior to everybody else’s.
Habit #9. Withholding information
Withholding information is part of corporate culture and is used to gain power.
People who withhold information answer questions with a question, tend to be passive aggressive and promote mistrust.
It becomes important to improve your communications skills, to make sharing information a priority, and to inform people what you are up to.
Habit #10. Failing to give proper recognition
People who are unable to praise and reward, who don’t recognize the contribution of others technically withhold information.
People who are not recognized feel unsuccessful, unappreciated, forgotten and ignored.
Habit #11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
People who claim credit withhold praise and congratulations, overlook the right people, deprive them from recognition.
People who claim credit are thieves and need to win. Whether you are the perpetrator or the victim of credit hogging:
Write down every time you congratulate yourself per day.
Review your list and discern who deserves credit.
Habit #12. Making excuses
Making excuses is not a viable leadership strategy and stops self-development.
Excuses are different from explanation. However, most people use excuses to explain their failures.
Habit #13. Clinging to the past
The past explains a lot of our behavior.
Most people live in the past because they can blame others for things that happened to them.
However, clinging to the past is unhealthy. The past cannot be changed, rewritten or excuses. It can only be accepted.
Habit #14. Playing favorites
Some leaders unknowingly play favorites.
They encourage people who serve them, praise them and admire them unconditionally.
Playing favorites is dangerous because you select the wrong people, you favor people who don’t necessarily like you, you fail to recognize the people who deserve it.
Habit #15. Refusing to express regret
People who refuse to express regret are unable to forgive, to apologize, to admit their wrongs, to cede power or control.
Refusing to apologize can create a toxic workplace. However, apologizing is powerful tool.
Habit #16. Not listening
Lack of attention is one of the most common bad habits in the workplace.
Not listening to someone demonstrates that you are impatient, don’t care about what they are saying, that they are wasting your time, that you don’t understand what they are saying.
Habit #17. Failing to express gratitude
Expressing gratitude is a powerful and essential tool to success.
Habit #18. Punishing the messenger
Punishing the messenger tend to attack those who blow the whistle and who bring bad news to us.
Habit #19. Passing the buck
The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
Passing the buck means finding a scapegoat, blaming others for our mistakes.
Leaders who pass the buck are difficult to follow because they don’t take responsibility for their actions.
Habit #20. An excessive need to be “me”
People who feel the need to be themselves hold on to behaviors they think intrinsically define them.
They refuse to change because they see it as being inauthentic.
The truth is they have a limited definition of themselves.
Habit #21. Goal obsession
Goal obsession can drive to success but it can also drive to failure.
Goal obsession or obsessing over the wrong goals become negative when you force yourself to achieve your goals in spite of the bigger picture, of your manners and your character.
How To Overcome These 21 Habits?
To dispel these habits, it is important to learn what type of information is appropriate to share, when and how to convey information, who to ask for information, how to discern useful information.
To overcome these 21 habits:
Ask for feedback. Change does not happen with negative feedback but with honest and helpful feedback.
Get feedback on your own from your surroundings and from how people react to you.
Learn to apologize for your bad behavior to the people who matter most to you. By apologizing, you mend broken relationships and overcome negative emotions.
Demonstrate changed behavior or your intention to change your behavior.
Listen more than you speak and listen with respect.
Express gratitude.
Follow up on your progress by asking your coworkers.
Discuss the behavior you are changing to one person and ask them for suggestions in the future.
Review
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith is a very insightful book. It serves as a workplace guide of the things not to do.
It is written for leaders and for people who want to move up in life and at work.
According to Marshall Goldsmith, everybody has a at least six to eight habits that need to be stopped. From the look of it, we are all guilty of these habits.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith is definitely a good place to start when you are looking to improve, when you are looking to understand the people and the different dynamics in the workplace.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
We have to stop couching all our behavior in terms of positive or negative. Not all behavior is good or bad. Some of it is simply neutral. Neither good nor bad.
the higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.
As we advance in our careers, behavioral changes are often the only significant changes we can make.
If we can stop excusing ourselves, we can get better at almost anything we choose.
Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often. And yet for some reason, we are cheap and chary with gratitude—as if it were rare Bordeaux wine that we can serve only on special occasions. Gratitude is not a limited resource, nor is it costly. It is as abundant as air. We breathe it in but forget to exhale.
There are no good or bad emotions per se. However, some emotional displays are more socially acceptable than others, depending on each individual’s socio-economic background, appearances and attached stereotypes.
For example, being spiteful and openly provoking someone is socially accepted. However, a person reacting to that provocation with anger is not.
Furthermore, in the workplace, you must leave your emotions at the door, and display a confident and positive attitude. Demonstrating that you are having a bad week will probably get you removed from the project.
When the pressure is on, organizations look to leaders to take action and to safely bring the organization out of hot waters. Leaders who are unable to step up to the plate will potentially be removed from their position.
As a leader, you must discipline your emotions, always have a clear head, continuously deal with challenges, give and receive feedback, keep your employees motivated and on task, even when you are tired or fed up.
Wondering how to discipline your emotions and improve your leadership skills?
What being emotionally disciplined means…
Emotional discipline is about being able to effectively manage your feelings. Being emotionally disciplined means that you are also able to:
Stay calm in challenging situations and overpower your own emotions. You can then deal with a tough situation, without making it worse.
Respond and not react to triggering events.
Gain more power over yourself and control yourself instead of being controlled.
Separate your inner voice from the outside noise.
Remain in the present, avoid dwelling on the past and obsessing about the future.
Decide and act how you want to really feel.
Acquire the freedom to express yourself freely and to engage in activities that make you happy.
Avoid getting tangled up in someone else’s web and positively interact with people. Let’s be honest, emotional discipline is useful to gracefully put people back in their place.
See people for who they really are and for how they really make you feel.
Gain new perspectives on your problems and navigate different situations.
Effectively address important and difficult issues.
Take advantage of a given situation and delay instant gratification for long-term rewards.
Possess several strategies to overcome most challenges.
Why discipline your emotions?
People will try your patience and your peace of mind on a daily basis in life and in the workplace.
The way you feel has an impact on your behavior, on the way you lead and the way you think. Your emotions also affect your health, your self-talk and your work performance.
Needless to say, becoming emotionally disciplined requires a lot of self-reflection, quiet moments with yourself and understanding that no one can harm you without your consent.
It requires growth, that you build up your resistance and become thick-skinned. It is not an easy nor an overnight process.
How leaders strengthen their emotional discipline?
Most people who possess emotional discipline are successfully placed in leadership positions because they are able to work through their own discomfort. To strengthen your emotional discipline, it is imperative to acquire the following habits.
#1. Leaders have a strong hold on their identity
They know their core values, their strengths and weaknesses. They also know where to apply them and they learn about themselves through their emotions.
In addition, they do not let stereotypes and assumptions define them.
#2. Leaders understand their triggers
This step is time-consuming because people might not want to immediately confront their emotions and they might resist the drive down memory lane.
When the pressure is on, leaders are able to quickly identify the origin of your emotions. They know their triggers, understand why that situation or this person is triggering them.
Furthermore, they don’t let anyone push their buttons or control them, they don’t react but they respond to negative behavior.
They wake up in the morning ready to achieve their goals for the day and to make the right decisions for themselves.
#4. Leaders walk with integrity
They do what is right because doing the wrong thing requires too much emotional effort.
Moreover, they take accountability for their actions and don’t shift blame.
#5. Leaders stay in the moment
Most of the time, being in the moment will give you the opportunity to feel your emotional response and give you the appropriate response to any situation.
#6. Leaders identify the emotions that overcome them
If you cannot find the right words to describe your emotion, postpone your self-reflection until later, when you’re in a quiet place.
#7. If they can, leaders write down their thoughts on paper
This way, you will notice your thought patterns, illogical and irrational thoughts, the assumptions that you make, the systems of beliefs, the solutions to your situation, what you need to feel better and to clarify your situation.
#8. Leaders practice self-care
They work out regularly, eat well and do things that you enjoy.
In addition, they take the time to meditate, to quiet the noise in their minds, to improve their self-talk and to employ the power of positive affirmations.
#9. Leaders see people for who they truly are
Leaders are not only self-aware but they are aware of other people’s intention.
#10. Leaders have a strong support system
They have an emotional support system in place that helps them reason, that they go to regularly and that act as a sounding board.
They also surround themselves with people who are emotionally healthy.
So, emotionally disciplined leaders look for solutions instead of dwelling on their circumstances, focus on the positive and don’t dwell on the negative.
Last Words Of Advice!
You cannot run from your emotions and project false ones.
Eventually, they will catch up with you. One small insignificant incident can trigger and instantly download all the emotions that you haven’t dealt with.
Don’t be afraid of your emotions.They are there to help you and they will ease up once you have confronted them.
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.
In How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job, Sally Helgesen & Marshall Goldsmith have noticed that in the workplace, high achievers — men and women — often demonstrate problematic habits that undermine their career, that have propelled them in the past and that won’t allow them to move further up.
Women, contrary to men, display different self-limiting behavior, face particular challenges, even if they want to advance their career and even if they have assets to contribute to the workplace.
Most often, women feel stuck in their jobs. Feeling stuck comes from feeling like you are unable to move forward, like some force is willfully holding you back, like you are not allowed to use your strengths or you are underappreciated. The feeling of being stuck will shape their behavior and will subsequently determine how others will respond to them.
There are also various external barriers that hold women back from success: most workplace structure has been designed by men for men. Stereotypes influence women ability to move up the ladder: they are their perceived as too aggressive, too passive, too talkative, too quite, too emotional, too mean, they smile too much or frown too much… Needless to say, women are not at all responsible for these barriers or being held back.
Changing habits
People tend to cling to habits that have made them successful but that are no longer serving them. These habits have been reinforced by external factors and by people who want to celebrate your success, by the fact that most people are blind to their own weaknesses.
Furthermore, organizations are quick to claim that they thrive on change, but make it hard for their employees to change within them because:
Organizations assign roles and tasks on past behaviors and keeping them there. This makes it difficult for employees to practice new behaviors.
Organizations celebrate and reward a successful action and ignore a warning or a successful lack of action. Someone would be celebrated for signing a good deal and avoid a bad one. The latter are viewed as naysayers.
Habits are not intrinsic to your character but are your comfort zone, your default setting created by your surroundings. Changing is hard, time-consuming and may require external help.
People will then hold one to old behaviors rather than changing them. That resistance is built naturally by rationalizing a behavior, by your brain after repeated behavior and familiar situations.
Because stopping a habit is more effective than starting one, Helgesen & Goldsmith have put together 12 habits to stop practicing in order to be successful as a woman. To open new doors, be purposeful and intentional about choices and change behavior, it is first detrimental for women to identify how them define success.
According to Helgesen and Goldsmith, while caring about rewards and status, most women value satisfaction, quality of life and the impact of their contribution over a high salary or a high position. Women don’t define success as winning or as keeping score, don’t enjoy competition and rather collaboration. Hence, women find it easier to transition to leadership positions because they can place emphasis on others instead of themselves.
Your old habits have previously served but are currently hindering you. It’s not too late to change and acquire better habits. To get rid of them:
Identify the habits you need to work on.
Recognize your behavior as a habit, try different behaviors and observe the responses.
Repeat behaviors until your brain is comfortable with the new behavior.
Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Recognize your strengths as well, avoid judging people.
Address habits one at a time.
HABIT #1: Reluctance to claim your achievements
Women work harder than men but avoid taking credit for their successes, avoid using the pronoun “I” because they believe that:
Their work will automatically speak for itself.
This behavior is obnoxious and disruptive.
The group to which they belong to expect them to be modest, unobtrusive and coy.
To get over the reluctance to claim your achievements:
Learn how to promote yourself.
Believe that you are detrimental to your own success.
Enlist the help of people to speak on your behalf and don’t contradict what people have to positively say about you.
HABIT #2:Expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions
When others don’t notice the work that they do, women start to feel unacknowledged or underappreciated for the hard work that they put in. They start to feel like the don’t belong and will look for another place to work.
To get over expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions:
Set goals for your career and share your vision at every opportunity.
Prepare an elevator speech and be ready to deliver it at any moment. This will demonstrate your ambition, clarify your future, get you noticed, show that you are confident and serious, will be an opportunity to highlight your skills, will help you identify the self-serving opportunities. Your elevator speech should be clear, concise, identical to a personal vision or mission statement.
HABIT #3: Overvaluing expertise
Becoming an expert in a field gets women noticed, is a defense mechanisms, a way of asserting their value.
However, mastering a role will only keep you in the same role. Becoming an expert is time-consuming, will make you knowledgeable but will not make you a leader.
To get over the habit of overvaluing expertise:
Build relationships, increase influence and do the job well enough.
Don’t be sloppy.
HABIT #4:Just building rather than building and leveraging relationships
To women, building relationships is emotionally and personally rewarding. Indeed, women have good relationships skills but don’t leverage them to get ahead in the workplace because they don’t want:
Their connections to feel used.
Their relationships to be based on self-interests.
To play the political game.
To get over the habit of just building rather than building and leveraging relationships:
Ask people to connect you to higher-ups.
Use a win-win or quid pro quo system.
Become more intentional about your relationships.
Remember that people can benefit from you and vice versa.
HABIT #5:Failing to enlist allies from day one
From the first day on the job, most women tend to try to keep their heads down, to understand every aspect of their job, to avoid asking questions, to value expertise, to be undergoing the impostor syndrome. As seem before, expertise is just your way of making yourself credible.
Instead find out with who you should connect with to get better visibility, more influence.
To get over failing to enlist allies from day one:
Reach out to others first and engage as many people as possible.
Find mentors and sponsors.
Keep in mind that allies are not friends.
Talk positively about your allies.
Identify the people who can propel you to the next level or that you would enjoy working with.
HABIT #6: Putting your job before your career
Most women trying to do their jobs perfectly because they are loyal, get stuck in the same job for years.
To get over putting your job before your career:
Let people know that you are ready for a challenge.
Analyze how your current position can serve your long-term interest.
Admit self-interest and identify what you value and how you can maximize your strengths.
Appreciate you current position.
HABIT #7: The perfection trap
Women tend to be perfect due to social expectations. Doing your job perfectly doesn’t guarantee success. Instead, it creates stress, keep you distracted and annoyed and sets you up for disappointment, it makes you hard on yourself, destroyed by failure, paralyzed by mistakes, sets too high standards for your team.
Women find themselves eager to please, to be nice, to make everybody happy, are afraid of disappointing and of being a burden. This behavior is time-consuming, kills careers, deters from taking a stance and from following a higher purpose.
To get over the disease to please:
Identify your priorities.
Learn to delegate.
Select your commitments with care.
Stand your ground.
HABIT #9:Minimizing
Women tend to make themselves smaller, which is translated in the body language and the words they use. This behavior sends the message that they are diminished, subservient, non deserving, uncertain and underachieving.
To get over the habit of minimizing yourself:
Talk about your accomplishments, talk about individual and collective wins if that makes you feel fairer.
Choose your voice and words carefully.
Stay in the moment.
Avoid multitasking and spreading yourself too thin.
HABIT #10: Too much
In the workplace, women have to temper and constantly monitor their emotional response to situations. Being perceived as too intense, too emotional, too strong, too vulnerable, too much can be an obstacle to promotion.
Monitoring your behavior, your emotions is draining and makes you come out as inauthentic. To get over the display of too much emotions:
Women are more likely to ruminate, to cling on to the past. They turn their hurt inwards, relive their failure and blame themselves.
Ruminating is counterproductive, are depressing, won’t help you succeed or solve future problems.
To get over the habit of ruminating:
women need to find ways to distract themselves and interrupt their thought.
learn from the facts and move on.
HABIT #12:Letting your radar distract you
Women notice a lot of details and process them differently than men. They are aware of everybody’s reaction, are distracted by details and are unable to stay ion the moment.
To get over the habit of getting distracted by their radar, discipline your thoughts and refrain from negativity.
Review
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen & Marshall Goldsmith is relatable, proactive and insightful. It is written for women with the best intention and with the desire to help women stop self-sacrificing and stop self-sabotaging. It is not necessarily targeted towards women of color even though it mentions the challenges that women of color face in the workplace.
Above all, it teaches us introspection and demonstrates how to control what we can, how to change bad habits, how to improve our quality of life and to reach our full potential.
In addition, How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Helgesen & Goldsmith pushes us to seek the positive in every interaction, in every feedback and to not take remarks personally even if they are based on stereotypes. It’s all about changing a behavior that stands in your way.
For the most part, I agree that women share habits that keep us from advancing in the workplace. There are several points that were accurate and that resonated with me: I have a nagging tendency to ruminate on negative experiences (Habit #11). Because I pay too much attention to detail (Habit #12), the rumination process is that much amplified.
However, I felt like Helgesen and Goldsmith insinuated that women, aware of the stereotypes placed on them in the workplace, have to take on the responsibility of changing themselves to fit in, have to listen to and apply the feedback they received from the people who perpetuate the stereotypes, that they have to become enablers and mirror men’s behavior.
It doesn’t seem like we are supposed to change to acquire greater values or to reach a higher purpose. But we’re changing to fit someone else’s standards or expectations of us: we move from one expectation to another.
Favorite quote(s)
Instead of viewing money and position as the sole or even chief markers of success, women also tend to place a high value on the quality of their lives at work and the impact of their contributions.
the trick to maximizing your talents and opportunities is not becoming a less thoughtful and giving person, but rather being purposeful and intentional about your choices while also addressing the behaviors that keep you stuck.
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