Tag: Respect

Journey To Leadership

The Importance Of Kindness In Leadership

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Kindness is extremely hard to implement in the world we live in today because according to popular belief, kindness is weakness…

However, in the workplace, kindness is essential to leadership success.

Furthermore, genuine acts of kindness in the workplace don’t go unnoticed as people tend to pay it forward.

Indeed, most people who have been through fire in their personal and professional life appreciate serenity and kindness. They would try everything to maintain their self-worth and peace of mind.

Wondering how to develop kindness in the workplace?

The Importance Of Kindness In Leadership #leadership #kindness journeytoleadershipblog.com

Benefits Of Kindness in Leadership

Kind leaders act with the best interest and on behalf of their team and organization. They are authentic, humble, have high morals and a sense of decency.

In kind organization, leaders believe that the people are the heart of the organization.

Furthermore, leaders are able to increase engagement and empower team members who gradually grow in confidence.

In addition, being kind doesn’t mean that you are soft, a pushover, that you are avoiding conflict, that you lack boundaries, that you are people pleasing or that you have to put up with bad behavior.

It means that you take time to listen and understand the people around you before acting or making a decision. It also means that you analyze the consequences of your decisions. 

1. Kind leaders are kind to themselves

Kind leaders are firstly kind to themselves and the people closest to them.

They celebrate their own success, forgive themselves when they make mistakes and set clear boundaries.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. - Lao Tzu Click To Tweet

2. Kind leaders use the Golden Rule

The best and strongest leaders put people first and treat their team with kindness.

They acknowledge people, show respect and demonstrate that they care. They simply treat people the way they want to be treated. They understand that they can get more things done, they have to treat people like people.

For example, they have face to face conversations and ask people how they are doing. They can be generous with their time and actively listen to people.

3. Kind leaders set clear expectations

They let people know what needs to be done to avoid miscommunication, misinterpretation, misdirections.

They don’t give out false objectives and avoid sending their team members on a wild goose chase. They celebrate their success and the success of others..

Team members will then commit to their work and reach their goals.

4. Kind leaders tell the truth

Telling the truth encourages growth within the team and builds up the leader’s credibility and respect.

They understand that the truth comes with consequences but they also want the best out of their teams so they overpass their need for self-preservation or self-interest.

They place people in the right positions and give honest feedback to help people perform at their best.

5. Kind leaders agree to disagree

A difference in opinion doesn’t dictate their character.

They have great communication skills and can handle tough conversations.

They don’t ostracize or belittle people who don’t like them.

6. Kind leaders believe in equality and equity

They treat everyone equally, regardless of their personal bias, stereotypes, personality, character and performance.

They are culturally sensitive and advocate for inclusion.

7. Kind leaders create a safe environment

Kind workplaces increase productivity and improve the company culture.

Leaders understand that employees need to feel safe in order to be productive.

Unkind leaders instill fear and use their power and position to make their employees comply. Employees feel unsafe and tend to quit their jobs or resort to the same bad behavior to survive.

Last Words Of Advice!

What of being kind requires too much time and effort that I don’t have? Kindness is a long term investment that requires authenticity, strength and courage.

There are some people who will create chaos, use fear and anger as a management, and try to discourage you from being kind.

 

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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Book Reviews

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow By John C. Maxwell

by journeytoleadershipblog2 Comments on The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow By John C. Maxwell

According to John C. Maxwell, there are 21 irrefutable laws of leadership that every leader should hold on to.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow By John C. Maxwell #books #bookreviews #leadership #leadershipskills #leadershipbooks #selfimprovement #selfawareness

1. The law of the lid

Your ability to lead determines your effectiveness, the height of your success, the limit of your vision, the impact of your influence.

To overcome the law of the lid, you have to increase your ability to lead.

2. The law of influence

Influence is an important part of leadership.

You have to put in work to gain influence. It is not about a title or a leadership position and cannot be bought.

With influence, you can rally people to a cause, move people in a new direction, and you can win people over on the long run.

3. The law of process

Leadership is a lifelong process.

LEADERSHIP IS DEVELOPED DAILY, NOT IN A DAY. - John C. Maxwell in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Click To Tweet

Leadership is a collection of skills that need continual improvement, personal growth and learning.

Leadership requires a lot of self discipline and determination. It is important for leaders to open themselves up for improvement to start slow and fight their way up.

4. The law of navigation

Leaders need to effectively navigate their way through life, while knowing people are depending on them.

In order to give themselves the best chances at success, they:

  • Are realistic.
  • Have to stay focused and in control.
  • Have a solid vision for their destination.
  • Have enough visibility to change course in time if they want to.
  • Draw their itinerary from their past failures and successes.
  • Listen to what their team has to say.
  • Don’t make commitments lightly.
  • Plan the course of their action.

5. The law of E. F. Hutton

Leaders become real leaders thanks to their character, relationships, knowledge, experience, past successes and abilities. People will not follow you because of your position.

The law of E. F. Hutton helps you figure out who the real leader in the room really is. To find the real leader, observe the reaction of the people in the room when the real leader speaks.

6. The law of solid ground

Leaders must communicate their character, exemplify their behavior, maintain their credibility and avoid breaking the trust of their followers.

When leaders make a mistake, they must quickly admit it and ask for forgiveness.

7. The law of respect

Leaders who are stronger and better leaders than their followers tend to gain respect.

8. The law of intuition

The law of intuition is a complex part of leadership, relies on instinct, facts and other factors.

Leaders who work with the law of intuition are able to sense a situation, to read people and themselves, to use their intuition to achieve their goals and to solve problems.

9. The law of magnetism

The law of magnetism states that who you are is who you attract.

Leaders who follow this law are able to attract the people who possess the same qualities as they do.

They attract people with same attitude, from the same generation and background, with the same values, life experiences and abilities.

Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible. - John C. Maxwell in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Click To Tweet

10. The law of connection

Leaders who observe this law touch people emotionally, know how to communicate with people, connect with them and show that they care.

The more leaders work on the connection with their employees, the more employees are loyal and demonstrate a strong work ethic.

11. The law of the inner circle

The people in the leader’s inner circle will determine the leader’s potential.

Leaders understand that they cannot be a lone ranger and acknowledge the purpose and strengths of the inner circle.

12. The law of empowerment

Successful and secure leaders empower and believe in their team.

Those who don’t create a barrier that their employees cannot overcome.

13. The law of reproduction

The law of reproduction works in a way where only leaders are capable of developing leaders and by teaching them what they know.

Some leaders don’t develop other leaders because they don’t have time or because of their own insecurities.

14. The law of buy in

People buy into leaders who have a vision.

If they don’t like the leader or the vision, they get another leader.

If the leader is credible, then people believe that the vision is credible as well.

15. The law of victory

Leaders who observe this law refuse defeat, dedicate themselves to victory and find a way to achieve success.

16. The law of the big mo

Leaders understand that to create change they need to create momentum.

Momentum is contagious, improves performance and makes the leader look good.

17. The law of priorities

Leaders spend their time prioritizing and recognize that doing more does not equate success.

They use the Pareto principle and the three Rs( requirement, return, reward).

18. The law of sacrifice

Sometimes, leaders have to sacrifice themselves to succeed and to gain opportunities.

The higher you go up on the ladder, the more you have to sacrifice.

19. The law of timing

Successful leaders read situations, recognize when to lead and when to take the right action at the right time.

20. The law of explosive growth

Potential leaders are hard to find and to attract but leaders who develop other leaders multiply growth within their organization.

21. The law of legacy

Leaders who leave a legacy lead with tomorrow in mind, make developing other leaders as part of the culture, sacrifice for future success and pass on the torch.

Review

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow is an easy to read leadership development book.

In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow, John C. Maxwell makes a list of 21 laws of leadership to help people better themselves and their organization.

These laws are the universal foundation for every area of your life. They can be learnt, be in standalone, have serious consequences, be practiced on a daily basis.

Maxwell has spent most of his life in leadership position. So, he entertains us with uncommon, historical and adventurous examples that everyone can relate to.

Finally, he encourages leaders to learn and go apply what they learnt.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

Leadership is complicated. It has many facets: respect, experience, emotional strength, people skills, discipline, vision, momentum, timing—the list goes on. As you can see, many factors that come into play in leadership are intangible. That’s why leaders require so much seasoning to be effective.

The good news is that your leadership ability is not static. No matter where you’re starting from, you can get better.

The leader finds the dream and then the people. The people find the leader, and then the dream.

MANY PEOPLE TODAY WANT TO CLIMB UP THE CORPORATE LADDER BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THAT FREEDOM AND POWER ARE THE PRIZES WAITING AT THE TOP. THEY DON’T REALIZE THAT THE TRUE NATURE OF LEADERSHIP IS REALLY SACRIFICE.

Ratings 4/5

Author

John C. Maxwell

Journey To Leadership

Providing & Receiving Positive Feedback

by journeytoleadershipblog2 Comments on Providing & Receiving Positive Feedback

Annual Performance Reviews are often dreaded by most employees.

It is the time of the year where we often get offended, where leaders realize that they don’t really understand what is going on in their organization.

In addition, most employees believe that their performance review is inaccurate and biased. It has been shown that it doesn’t help employees improve their performance reach their greatest potential, or grow personally.

That is because, performance reviews:

  • Are given annually which is insufficient. Indeed, mistakes have time to fester for a whole year.
  • Don’t provide enough details. The annual performance review tracks a few of our skills and take snapshots of our behaviors.
  • Take into account only one person’s point of view.
  • Cross-examines someone with different sets of sills with defective criteria.

Wondering how to adequately give and receive feedback?

Providing & Receiving Positive Feedback

The ability to give and to receive feedback is essential to success and to being a great leader. It is a personal development tool and a skill that can be learnt.

What is constructive feedback?

Feedback is the general way you perceive people, is a shared appreciation of a person and of a situation.

Furthermore, feedback is constructive criticism, challenges the way you think about yourself and aims to see people improve and become their best selves. It is the desire for employees to perform well and to find satisfaction in their job.

In fact, giving feedback is similar to coaching, mentoring or teaching.

Feedback is different from micromanagement, negative criticism or emitting judgement. It can be wrong but it is unfortunately necessary for our growth.

Benefits of the feedback process

We perpetually need evaluation to assess our current situation, our ego and our work performance.

The feedback process, if done the right way, will:

However, giving or receiving feedback is difficult: it relies on false assumptions, it consumes time and energy, is often met with avoidance or with resistance.

Nevertheless, being closed off from feedback unequivocally leads to conflicts, to setbacks, to communication issues, to an inability to find a solution.

How to receive feedback?

Receiving feedback as a leader will set the example and encourage people to listen to what you have to say.

Receiving feedback doesn’t mean automatically acting on the advice or immediately starting the changing process. It means that you must:

  1. Understand that there is always room for improvement. 
  2. Be open to feedback in general and therefore to understanding someone’s perception of you.
  3. Listen to what people you trust are saying about you and give the thoughts some consideration.
  4. Consolidate your confidence and set apart your identity from the perceptions people have about you.
  5. Understand that you have the option to choose to apply the feedback.
  6. Identify your triggers and fortify your emotional intelligence. You must therefore be willing to ask the right questions, to objectively talk about issues regarding you and to separate the person giving you feedback from the actual message.
  7. Learn from your mistakes and give yourself time to apply what you have learnt.

How to give feedback?

Leaders who are able to effectively receive feedback are able to give them as well, must exhibit exemplary behavior. To give effective feedback:

  1. Build trust and respect in your employees.
  2. Help people feel good about themselves and motivate them to grow.
  3. Develop an adequate communication style.
  4. Find out why you are implementing the feedback process.
  5. Specifically identify the issues you need to deal with, the reasons and the solutions for them.
  6. Understand that everybody processes information differently, has their personal systems of belief and their own truths. This makes the interpretation of feedback difficult.
  7. Before starting the process, collect enough information to form an accurate opinion. Prepare examples to back up your claims. Do not assume things about people and do not classify them.
  8. Don’t project, force people to change, force people to be something that they are not or treat them like a project that needs to be fixed.
  9. Mind your intent and be genuine in your delivery. Inauthentic feedback breeds distrust and generates negative emotional responses.
  10. Be empathetic. Think about what you are going to say and do before meeting with the person. Show appreciation, choose your words and timing carefully.
  11. Discuss people’s work performance but not their personality nor core values.
  12. Focus on people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.
  13. Avoid definite terms such as “never”, “always”, “must”, “should”, and make “I’ statements.
  14. Encourage positive behavior. Work is not always fair and not everyone plays by the same rules.
  15. Acknowledge that there are consequences to every action.
  16. Give frequent feedback outside the annual performance review, in private, as soon as possible.

Providing & Receiving Positive Feedback

Last Word Of Advice!

Human beings are very sensitive and most people are not confrontational. So, treat people like you would like to be treated. Don’t seek to offend or to blame, and don’t talk down to 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.