Posts Tagged ‘Calibra’

Adversity Reveals You

Author: admin, Date: 1/4/2016

“In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made of.”
Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks

How you lead during times of adversity reveals you. Your leadership strengths are highlighted and your leadership flaws are accentuated.
Adversity is in the eyes of the beholder—it can be as small as a difficult employee or customer interaction or as large as a major lay-off or legal challenge. Regardless, how you behave under stress says a lot about your overall leadership.
It is easy to lead during the good times. While obstacles still exist, leaders tend to have the resources (time, people, money) to overcome them. It’s when times get tough that you really need to demonstrate your leadership skills. What leadership strengths or weaknesses do you reveal during times of adversity? What do your employees and colleagues say about you when things are stressful? These are the things I often hear about the “boss” when I work with clients:

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A Quick Way to Explore Work/Life Balance

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 3/25/2015

My coaching practice presents me with the opportunity to work with leaders in a variety of organizations and industries.  These are leaders at all levels struggling to make a difference in their work and in their lives.  A common thread is the desire to find more “balance.”  (While balance is the popular term, I think it is really more about integration; but, that’s a discussion for another post.)

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The 3 Cs of Building Credibility

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 1/30/2015

We hear a lot about credibility these days, particularly as it relates to our elected officials (as in lack of credibility).  It has even surfaced as we evaluate the results of our sporting events (e.g., deflated footballs, blown calls).

Credibility is the quality of being believable or worthy of trust.  As a leader, it allows your employees to put their faith in you to make good decisions, communicate with transparency and be a reliable source of information.  It allows your peers and your manager to know that you are communicating without hidden agendas and that you have the organization’s best interest in mind.

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Developing potential? Focus on strengths and shortcomings

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 10/24/2013

For over a decade, the focus of leadership and professional development has been to emphasize people’s strengths rather than concentrate on weaknesses. The concept was popularized by Gallup researchers and led to a series of StrengthsFinder books and tools. For those unfamiliar, the StrengthsFinder is an assessment that reveals dominant “themes” that help people focus on their strengths and abilities and center their work and lives on them. The premise is that it makes more sense to leverage strengths and talents versus trying to address shortcomings.

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Self-Assessment versus Feedback

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 9/18/2013

There are times when it is helpful to allow employees to analyze or assess their own performance versus providing them with your own feedback or perspective. This allows the person to think about what they did—what worked and what didn’t. As the leader/manager, you can certainly add to the conversation; however, the starting point is to take more of a coaching role and allow the employee to comment on the situation.

It involves three simple steps outlined below. Choose which questions best fit the situation and adapt to meet your needs.

1. Ask about what went well.

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Improve Team Decision-Making

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 8/29/2013

I’ve been working with a number of teams lately who seem to struggle with decision-making. A couple of frequent complaints include:

  • “Decision-making takes too long. We’re trying to make decisions by consensus but we just never get anywhere.”
  • “It doesn’t matter what we say, the manager/leader always makes the decision.”
  • “We make a decision but then we just revisit it at the next meeting.”

If these protests sound familiar, you are not alone. It is quite common for teams to have difficulty with decision-making.

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3 Simple Guidelines for Your Organizational Talent

Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 7/25/2013

1. Invest more development dollars and time where you will get the highest return. Do not spend your development dollars equally; high potentials, critical positions, and key leaders (current or future) demand differential attention. Likewise, while all employees should be receiving regular feedback regarding their performance and development, leaders need to be steadfast in providing timely, specific feedback and appreciation to their top talent.

2. Provide opportunities for accelerated development to help current and prospective leaders grow in their jobs and their careers—keep the pipeline filled. Potential opportunities may include individual coaching, mentoring relationships, involvement in key projects or initiatives, internal training, stretch assignments, networking, delegated tasks, participating in organizational meetings or industry conferences.

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You’ve Conducted a Survey…Now What?

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 7/17/2013

It’s a common practice to collect feedback from employees to gauge how things are going. Whether it is an employee opinion survey, an assessment of employee engagement, or a focus group/interview study, many organizations periodically ask employees for their thoughts and/or input. The hard part isn’t asking the questions or collecting the data. It’s what do you do once you have the information.

Next steps

Survey feedback often suggests that employees think that “management won’t do anything with the results.” To avoid this from happening, the senior leadership team should take the following steps after any assessment effort:

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Teachable Moment

Author: Paul Dillenburg, Date: 6/27/2013

One of the current buzzwords in leadership development seems to be the idea of “teachable moments.” That is, helping a direct report learn from a practical, job related experience as it occurs. An example of a teachable moment that I was able to highlight for an individual I was coaching may shed some light on how to capture these valuable moments. This excerpt is from a previous blog post.

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No Offense Intended

Author: Diane Hamilton, Date: 6/6/2013

I received a marketing email yesterday from an individual who used a term that could be considered derogatory and offensive. I took note; found myself surprised by the use of the language; and, wondered about a potential lack of awareness as to how the terminology could offend. Well, within twenty-four hours I received a second email sincerely apologizing for the use of the language. The individual indicated that unfortunately she had no idea of the source of the phrase and its derogatory meaning. She went on to say:

“…And I couldn’t be more embarrassed and horrified. Please understand that no offense was intended.”

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