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Tag: Failures
Quote Of the Week #217
Quote Of The Week #175
Quote Of The Week #174
Quote Of The Week #165
8 Avoidable Mistakes That New Leaders Make
Congratulations! Your hard work has been noticed, you have been promotef and you have been rewarded with the position youq have been coveting (or not).
Now, it’s time to get to work because with your new role comes new responsibilities and with these new responsibilities come new people, new concepts, new ideas and also new opportunities for mistakes…
Wondering what are the critical mistakes to avoid as a new leader?
1. New leaders wait to be sollicited
A new leader who goes and checks in with the team is relatable, creates a bond and a sense of security.
Even if he or she has nothing special to say, expressing the basic requirements to the team is a good start.
2. New leaders nurture an imposter syndrom
It is quite normal to lack confidence when you first start out.
However, it is unhealthy and unproductive to openly and inwardly nurture an imposter syndrom for long periods of time.
After a while, your team will surely pick up on it and will start to question your leadership.
So, stop doubting yourself and take confidence in your leadership.
3. New leaders struggle with their leadership style
Befriend an employee or discipline a friend? That is the question…
Most new leaders, especially if they are unexpectedly thrown into a leadership position, have a hard time determining their leadership style.
It’s all about understanding your team members, learning to delegate, keeping your role and responsibilities in mind, finding the right balance between relatable, approachable and authoritative.
4. New leaders lead everyone the same way
Some people are quiet, others are loud.
Some introverted and others extroverted.
Some are all over the place and others don’t require discipline.
Some rather competition and others choose collaboration.
Some enjoy confrontation, some a conversation and others avoid conflict altogether.
Some are just somewhere in that spectrum.
The point is that not everyone is the same or require the same treatment. Therefore, the same leadership style cannot be used with everyone all the time.
5. New leaders tend to power trip and ego trip
That new found power can be elating to new leaders.
It will have them thinking that they can treat people anyway they want to or do whatever they please.
Someone else was in line for the job but you got it and it’s now an opportunity to belittle them?
There is no need to play or keep playing dirty because you have already made it and tomorrow is never guaranteed.
There are people on your team that you don’t like and you want to demonstrate your dislike and your authority?
They may technically be worked for you but the truth is that you are working for them.
If you abuse your power, everyone around you will lose respect for you and your behavior will slowly degrade productivity and team performance.
6. New leaders maintain their old responsibilities
Your responsibilities have changed or have increased?
It can be tempting and reassuring to want to handle every single details and to maintain your old activities in addition to your new ones.
It’s now time to accept the change, to fully take on your new role and to learn how to delegate.
7. New leaders tend to openly criticize
Whether it’s bad talking the person who previously held your position or critiquing the way things were done before you were here, critiquing tend to leave a bad taste in the mouth of your new team.
There is nothing wrong with wanting change and reorganizing things to your liking but you can do this without degrading your predecessors.
8. New leaders are afraid of appearing incompetent
Because of their fear of appearing incompetent, new leaders don’t clarify objectives, speak when they should really be listening, take credit for other’s ideas and don’t ask questions to higher ups.
Last Words Of Advice!
Before fully jumping in your new role and responsibilities, take a few moments to observe your new environment, comprehend the company culture and understand the people you will be working with.
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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Quote Of The Week #129
14 Traits Of Highly Successful Leaders
You do not have to be famous, be a millionaire or own a company in the Fortune 500 to be a successful leader.
A successful leader runs a successful business with a healthy return on investment with the help of a successful team.
A successful leader is able to mentally, emotionally, physically and financially provide for his or her team.
Wondering what are the main traits a successful leader?
To become a successful leader, there are a few traits that you need to develop.
The traits of successful leaders can be acquired anytime in life.
However, it is up to you to maintain them. It will also require a lot of self-discipline, self-motivation and self-awareness.
Trait #1. Successful leaders lead a healthy lifestyle
First and foremost, successful leaders are morning people.
They get a good night sleep.
They wake up early in the morning.
They choose to rise with the sun because it gives them time to think, to meditate, to plan their day.
Furthermore, they eat well and on time.
They exercise early in the morning to maintain their physical health, and to get rid of lingering negativity.
Trait #2. Successful leaders have strong conviction
They have the conviction that they are successful and that they will succeed no matter what.
Their conviction comes from their self-awareness, drive, purpose and their strong core values.
They have integrity and hold on to their principles.
They know that they can accomplish anything that they set their mind to.
They rely on their intuition, make their own opinion and don’t follow anyone.
Trait #3. Successful leaders manage their time effectively
They know how to manage their time and prioritize their tasks.
They are willing to handle the most difficult, most important and the most urgent first.
They say no to things that don’t matter to them or to things that don’t fit into the bigger picture.
Trait #4. Successful leaders value solitude
They regularly spend time alone to reflect and to get work done.
Trait #5. Successful leaders own up to their mistake
Indeed, they make mistakes.
They can admit when they have done wrong and can apologize for it.
They reward themselves for their successes and above all learn from their failures.
Trait #6. Successful leaders take calculated risks
They take risks, get out of their comfort zones, recognize what works and what doesn’t.
Trait #7. Successful leaders ask for feedback
They ask for feedback, actively listen to it, and if the feedback is sound, seek to apply it.
Trait #8. Successful leaders set boundaries
They have set clear boundaries in their mind early on.
They know what they need, want, wish for.
They also know what they will not allow or stand for.
They know how to say no and stand their ground.
Trait #9. Successful leaders obsess positively
Leaders spend their time obsessing positively.
By “obsessing positively”, I mean they are passionate and they can focus their attention on their goals for a prolonged amount of time.
Basically, they eat, drink, sleep, think their goals.
Trait #10. Successful leaders have a healthy work life balance
Even though they can obsess over their professional goals, they make time for a personal life.
They make sure to maintain a healthy work life balance.
Trait #11. Successful leaders are optimistic
They are grateful for what they have but are not complacent.
They do not dwell on negativity and CHOOSE to focus on positivity.
They don’t overthink or overanalyze everything.
They don’t play the victim and take responsibility for their actions.
They handle change, failures and pressure gracefully.
They see challenges as an opportunity to learn and they maintain a positive attitude in adversity.
Trait #12. Successful leaders are whole
Their self-esteem does not depend on what others think of them.
They don’t compare their lives with the ones of other people.
They don’t judge but empathize with other people.
They don’t insult but compliment people.
They don’t abuse their authority or power.
They don’t hug the spotlight but give credit when credit is due.
They do not need to harm someone else to feel superior or to feel whole.
They know who, how and when to forgive.
Moreover, they want to see others succeed. They encourage others to grow, to succeed and reach their full potential.
Trait #13. Successful leaders are wise beyond their years
They have a deep understanding of life and of themselves.
They can assess a situation and its outcome before engaging in it.
They have identified their purpose early in life and every decision that they make can be justified.
Trait #14. Successful leaders are learning machines
They are open-minded.
They are always learning, always evolving and always growing.
They understand that learning is a never-ending process, no matter their age or status.
On the flip side, they constantly want to share their knowledge with the world.
Last Words Of Advice!
Successful people inspire and act as role models for others and for their own organization.
Therefore, be mindful of your actions and of your words.
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.
30 Questions Every Leader Should Ask Themselves
Being a great leader depends on how well they know themselves. Leaders must make sure that they are self-aware, clearly communicate their goals and expectations, reach their goals, set high standards, expect quality work and meet deadlines, demonstrate that all their team members matter, show gratitude, don’t settle and spend time with their team.
Needless to say, a little introspection is required from time to time.
Wondering how do you become the best version of yourself?
Sometimes, we end up in or go after leadership positions but don’t understand why or how we got there.
It is always important to assess our goals, values and purpose every step of the way.
1) What does leadership mean to you?
Leadership encapsulates different concepts and key competencies.
For most, leadership is the ability to wheel power, to influence people positively in order to be successful, to bring like-minded individuals together towards a common goal or vision and to translate that vision into reality.
In order to be effective you must figure out what leadership means to you.
2) Why do you want to be a leader? What is your purpose in life?
Most people want to lead because they see themselves in power, in control, with status and doing whatever they want.
However, leaders are always held accountable for their actions, have to serve as models and have to exhibit exemplary behavior.
Without an ethical purpose in mind, they will not be able to sustain their role very long.
If you weren’t a leader, what would you do? What career would you pursue?
3) What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Do you have sufficient resources to achieve your goals and yourself?
Leaders must find at least one field in which they excel. This will develop their credibility, their confidence and will help you be of assistance to people in need.
4) What are your core values?
If your leadership roles don’t correspond to your values, it is time to rethink your career.
5) How do you center yourself?
Learning to center yourself, to choose peace of mind requires that you acquire new healthy habits and that you question your thoughts that most often are an illusion or distorted memories.
Figure out how to preserve your time and energy, how to ensure your growth, how to continually improve as a person, and how to boost your leadership self-esteem?
6) Can you grow within your role and responsibilities?
Some people get into positions to please their families, impress their friends or flatter their own egos.
A job or a role in which you feel boxed in is frustrating, leaves little space for you to develop your skills or maximize your strengths.
7) How do you wish to impact the world and the people around you?
As a leader, you must project yourself in the future and visualize the legacy that you want to leave.
8) Do you walk the talk?
Integrity is currently a rare character trait and most sought after leadership attribute that can help you succeed in the workplace as much as in life.
It actually goes a long way and projects more authority and credibility than a title or a position would.
Furthermore, the team you lead, the environment that you work in is a direct reflection of you. If you want a trusting workplace, be trustworthy.
9) Are you open to learn?
Being open to learn and to explore is detrimental to success.
To start the learning process, you can read books, take trainings and classes, and talk to people who are in positions that you aspire to.
Furthermore, you must understand that if you seek knowledge, you will never fully be an expert.
10) Are you developing a healthy work life balance?
Creating work-life balance is not giving equal attention to both work and life.
But, it means that you are satisfied with your contributions to your life and work, that you are able to create a sustainable synergy between both so that you are fueled by them on a daily basis.
To do so, you must focus on the vital few and not let your career affect your personal life and vice versa.
11) Are you self-interested or committed to the collective good?
We choose a certain career because our ever-changing needs and desires align with that particular career but not necessarily with the collective good.
In the leadership position, there is a huge discrepancy between hiring the right person with the right competencies for the job, between hiring someone with lesser competencies to feel unthreatened, between hiring someone to serve you and caress your ego.
There is also a difference between wanting the organization to succeed, wanting the team and the project to shine, and taking all the credit for someone else’s work.
12) What is your favorite leadership style?
Leadership style refers to the way that the leader interacts with his or her employees, influences their behavior, motivates them, make decisions for them and for the organization.
A specific leadership style can deeply influence the quality of work, the levels of commitment, the work satisfaction of both leader and employees.
13) Are you emotionally intelligent?
We cannot control everything in our life.
However, we can control how we react to different situations, how we see ourselves and who we aspire to be.
14) Are you able to solve conflicts effectively?
Leaders must be able to anticipate problems and implement solutions for the future. What strategies do you apply? How do you handle bad news? How do you set boundaries? Do you encourage dissension?
15) Do you have interpersonal skills?
There are several components to leadership. One of them is building and maintaining healthy relationships.
Leaders are responsible for the people they hire and the people that they lead. How do you build your team?
16) Are you culturally sensitive?
Cultural sensitivity is being aware that everyone is different.
It means being able to learn from different people, to understand their backgrounds, to collaborate and cooperate with them, without being judgmental.
17) When have you failed, how have you recovered yourself and what have you learned about yourself then?
Failures don’t directly lead to success but it can show you the way. It is best when your mistakes come to light rather than going unnoticed.
18) What are your greatest achievements as a leader and as a follower?
It is important to recall the time you have succeeded and demonstrated great leadership.
The memory of past success will serve you right when you face challenges. If you did it once, then you can do it again.
19) Are you able to direct someone else towards success?
Mentorship is usually the realization of leadership.
It is similar to tutorship, to parenthood, to partnership, or to an alliance.
20) Are you able to delegate?
Delegating increases employee empowerment and talent engagement, leads to higher levels of commitment, innovation, motivation, and better relationships..
21) Are you able to perform under pressure?
As a leader, your behavior in pressure moments impacts those around you and can predict their performance.
22) How do you solve problems and make sound decisions?
The ability to anticipate, to solve problems, to make quick and sound decisions will determine the success of a leader.
23) How do you motivate others? Can you communicate your visions successfully?
Effective communication skills will improve your leadership credibility, your self-confidence, your relationships with others, your feelings of belonging and will decrease your stress level.
Your communication skills will also drive change and increase team motivation.
Using those skills, leaders should be pushing a vision for their life, for their family or their organization and it shouldn’t matter whether they have the right relationships, enough money, enough favors, or have hired people with the desired skill set.
24) Are you organized and can you meet deadlines?
Leaders don’t have the luxury to procrastinate because it is similar to self-sabotage. However, they are all subject to it to some extent.
Being organized, methodical, pragmatic will help you gain a sense of satisfaction and will increase your chances of success.
25) Who do you look up to?
It is critical to have a role model who will help you improve, achieve your goals and will show you your life purpose.
Your role model is authentic, relatable and can be a family member, a friend in your entourage or someone you barely know.
26) Can you handle change?
Change is a part of life, is a constant and is inevitable. Change shakes things up, disrupts old habits, breathes new life into the workplace and into any project.
Leaders must visibly act out the change, must be ready to do things differently and to think otherwise.
27) What do you hate the most and will not stand for?
You can’t always find out what you like but life has a funny way of putting you in front of the things that you hate the most.
28) Can you accept criticism from others?
Accepting criticism implies that you are able to listen, accept people point of view and give feedback as well.
29) Are you becoming too complacent?
30) What do you want to improve on?
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.
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?
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:
- Know yourself, trust your intuition and understand that your ideas are valuable.
- Be mindful that problems arise every day and that you cannot solve everything all at once.
- Write down all the rules and core values that guide you so you can remember them in time of need.
- Be open-minded, explore other fields than your own and to frequent people from other industries.
- Educate yourself on your business. Read books and articles on your field.
- Avoid jumping to conclusions. Challenge your assumptions before you restrict your opportunities
- Be patient but take action before it’s too late and before the opportunity expires.
- Pay attention to other people’s opinion but don’t worry too much about the naysayers.
- Admit if you have made a mistake. Great leaders are able to face issues without shifting blame and shifting values.
- Embrace change and avoid criticizing new ideas.
- 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:
- Get the information about the problem.
- Identify the complexity, the symptoms, effects and root causes of the problem.
- Take time to reflect on your situation and to observe.
- Talk to the people implicated in the situation.
- Look for patterns and for trends.
- Find analogies to your situation that can help spark ideas.
- 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:
- Explore all ideas even if you think that they won’t work.
- Suggest solutions that would make the problem worse.
- 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.
- Look at what is being done by experts and evaluate the opposite solution.
- Ask for help from people around you. You can use brainstorming, mind mapping or road mapping techniques.
- Remove yourself from the situation to clear your mind and gain a different perspective.
- Break down the situation into simpler components.
- Write down pros and cons of the solutions.
- Clarify the criteria that your solution must meet.
- Test the feasibility of the solution.
- 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.
- Look up the “unwritten rules“ that you are about to break before making a decision.
- 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.
- 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.
- Seek to solve the problem long-term.
- 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:
- Set goals and deadlines that align with your goals.
- Keep your goals in mind.
- 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:
- Assess the impact of your current decision.
- Reward yourself if your solution is bringing positive results.
- If your plan doesn’t work, cut the losses and get back up.
- Ask for additional help.
- Execute your plan B if you have one. Revisit the problem, start over the solving process otherwise.
- Take a break before moving on to the next problem.
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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