Perhaps this a question with more than one variable to factor into the answer. However, knowing self-esteem and confidence is an essential ingredient of effective leadership, the larger question is do you help someone rise up out of failure if they are not leading or managing well or do you sit back and watch them fail? If you watch them fail, certainly they may have a reduction of self-esteem or confidence, BUT you may have your reasons. If you help them up, you may never get the gratitude you deserve, but there may be more to it than that. What are your thoughts and how would you approach this situation?

Not familiar with the concept of a manager being promoted, but not prepared? Refer back to the Contagious Commentary post that served as this weeks’ Monday Moment on January 30, 2012.

Stay Contagious!

Does getting promoted automatically mean you were prepared?

One of the areas of focus that we work on daily within Contagious Companies is to help develop managers who may have been promoted, but not prepared, learn to be more effective leaders. If you’ve been recently promoted, don’t you want to make sure you were not only promoted, but prepared to do the job well? I’m guessing the answer is yes and the steps below can provide your first action items to ensure you do your new job well.

Watch the Voices In Your Head

I just love talking about the voices in our heads and though you may think it’s a step that can be overlooked – it ISN’T. You talk to yourself and when you do, you listen. The question is more about “Is what you’re saying helping or hurting you?” When you are newly promoted you may have the tendency to wish you had all the answers and to do everything perfectly and immediately. Strive to make progress daily versus leaping tall buildings on day one and watch the potential sabotage of the voices in your head that say things like “Should”, “oughta”, “must”, and “have to”.

Take a Realistic Inventory of Your Needs

When promoted, it is a clear indication that someone thought you had the requisite skills to do the job well. There will, however, be skills or needs that come about that may require additional practice and development. This is normal. Take a realistic inventory of the things you want to develop, know you need to develop or improve upon and then start looking for the resources available to you to help with those.

Ask for Help

No leader does it alone. Even if you don’t have direct reports and you lead a project team of one, there are others in other departments or even colleagues unrelated to the project who usually provide elements, information, or guidance that you need. Your boss is also a resource. And, as you read in Contagious Leadership, Leaders Ask For Help From Those They Lead… who are often closer to the problem than you are. Who on the team you’ve developed or inherited can help you with feedback, resources, historical input, or teamwork? You won’t know until you ask.

The direction you take once promoted and you’ve completed these steps will depend on your current level of expertise, familiarity with the new role, number of direct reports and their development. If it is all new to you and this is your first time in a leadership role, take the time to pick up a copy of Contagious Leadership the book. If you’ve been down this road before and it is the team in need of some development or “gelling” the audio of Contagious Leadership, which includes the use of the CORE® Snapshot tool and will raise your level of awareness about those you lead and give you tools to lead them well, is a resource you want to have in your arsenal.

Your behavior, actions, beliefs, and thoughts all mold how you lead others, as well as how you lead yourself. A promotion is merely an honor that comes with a new title and new business cards. Leadership of those or that for which you are now effectively responsible, takes conscious focus and continued development. Check off “get new cards” from the list and then determine what your next step of progress will be in the more intangible development of your skills in your new role. You have what it takes to be a leader… and it’s more than the title.

How flexible are you in your willingness to learn to lead more effectively?

I would never have known it was him when I walked up to the desk to check in. Later I saw him bussing tables at the restaurant and the next day he was serving omelets in the breakfast buffet. It took my asking an employee who he was, merely on a hunch and she nearly beamed when she identified his actual title. Who are we talking about? The General Manger of the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Most hotel managers have worked their way up and been in the industry for some time. You would think they know all the positions and how to lead those in each, with finesse. But we also know that the higher up the ladder a leaders climbs, the greater the impact of the law of diminishing familiarity with the jobs they used to do. Hence, the new General Manager of this Crowne Plaza keeps his skills and relevancy fresh by literally working in the departments for which he is responsible. He works side by side with team members and they respect they feel for him and trust of his leadership shows the impact of those actions. His own version of cross training seems to be working wonderfully well!

How flexible are you in your leadership? Do you require the corner office and special desk or are you willing to don the apron or work outfit of those you lead and remind yourself what it’s like to be in their shoes? In order to develop those you lead, you have to know what they do and how they do it… not just recall what it was like when you were at that level or imagine what that would have been like.

Kudos to this manager for his flexibility, leadership and style in developing those he has the privilege of leading. One night in this hotel and you quickly learn just how contagious his leadership efforts are and how well his flexibility and approach are working!

Seen a great demonstration of Contagious Leadership and flexibility? Tweet us www.MonicaOnTwitter.com, follow or share your thoughts on Facebook at www.MonicaOnFacebook.com

Feel free to forward this post to your colleagues and friends or invite them to receive their own Monday Moments at www.MondayMoment.com.

You’ve shared the plan but what do you do if an employee doesn’t follow it?

When I was a child I learned to cook at about the age of six. My first dish was scrambled eggs and I was fascinated by how it all worked from the stove to the change in the eggs. Okay, so that’s a weird revelation, but often the lessons of employees are similar to what we learn as children and my first lesson in cooking was just how hot the stove really was. I was told and told, but had to see it for myself. In other words, I deviated from the plan before me that would keep me safe.

If those employees for whom you develop well intended development plans, deviate from those plans, what do you do? First, ensure these guidelines are met and then recognize that some still will have to TOUCH the “Stove” to know that it’s hot.

-          Make sure the consequences are relevant to them

-          Make sure the rewards for fulfilling the plan are relevant to them

-          Make sure there is enough motivation for them to follow the plan

-          Reexamine their trust in your guidance

-          Consider reevaluating the plan

Life experiences will often dictate how closely we follow the guidance of others. SO will trust and the rapport you’ve built with that team member. A deviation from your plan isn’t always about you the leader, but may indicate a lack of buy in, a stubborn streak, or a need for you to reevaluate the formulation of said plan.

What do you do when this happens? Take another look and provide support if they chose to learn the hard way that this is the plan that will work. If they get burned, soothe it and be there. Don’t utter words like “I told you so” unless you want to repeat this process and continue to motivate a deterioration of trust.

The best laid plans…well, aren’t always followed, but the best leaders recognize the root cause or problem and are persistent and flexible in their approach. Stay tuned on Friday for a great example of such flexibility and share your experiences with us. You might find them showcased in an upcoming Monday Moment. Tweet us www.MonicaOnTwitter.com, follow or share your thoughts on Facebook at www.MonicaOnFacebook.com

Feel free to forward this post to your colleagues and friends or invite them to receive their own Monday Moments at www.MondayMoment.com.

This just in from our CIO who shared a great post from a Microsoft Researcher. The article is fascinating from a technical perspective and what he is working on, but that’s more for our CIO. The part I found fascinating was his take on leadership and on life. It shows up succinctly in the last paragraph, but you’ll see the leadership tenor throughout. The skills of those leaders he works with and the skills in leadership he has developed and uses… are truly contagious!

Here’s the link: http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/01/24/james-mickens-the-funniest-man-in-microsoft-research.aspx#comments

Go James at Microsoft!

Stay Contagious,
Monica

You know you should develop those employees, but do you know how?

We get promoted and then are put in charge of leading other people, yet often the directions on how to actually lead or develop those employees is nebulous at best. In your tenure as a leader, or even in your journey toward successful Contagious Leadership, you may have utilized more trial and error tactics to achieve employee development. If that is the case, here is the short cut or steps you may have desired when you got the leadership role, or better yet, that you can now share with those you promote.

It’s simple really to develop others, that is when you have a plan. So, here’s the plan and steps to follow:

Assess What They Do Well and Where They Struggle.

Obviously this is going to initially be from your vantage point as their boss, but you may also find value in having them create or draft a similar assessment of their skills and talents.

Determine if They are Engaged in Developing Better Skills

Believe it or not, not all are interested in being better or learning more. Some suffer from merely not thinking they can do it, in which a good dose of Contagious Confidence™ training might be in order, and some struggle with not knowing how, which is where you can come in and immediately help.

Provide Resources that Directly Address their Learning Needs

When we design training curriculum, it originates from a collection of data on what those in the courses will need. It isn’t a guess or a suspicion, but based on hard data, analysis and facts. Once you have assessed those you lead and the areas in which they struggle, find the resources they need to learn from. For example, if attitude is an issue, they might need individual guidance from a coach, or you, on how to produce more effective results that THEY are looking for. Ask them what they are looking for and speak to that. If communication is a problem with those they lead, perhaps they need a class or a book or a mentor. What resources can you provide for the specific areas of need you’ve identified?

Install Incentives for Improvement and Timelines for Development

Someday soon doesn’t exist on my calendar. Does it on yours? If you establish a timeline for an employee to follow, they have an incentive or at least a heads up of what will happen if they ignore it. However, employees will run from pain and toward pleasure, as will all human beings in most cases, so you must also determine what is the pleasurable part they’ll experience once they complete the learning or development. In other words, what is the incentive for going through the effort?

The most effective leaders follow this or similar course of action in developing the employees they lead. When was the last time you followed this plan? Would you like to see visual examples of it put into action? We are collecting a series of videos from successful leaders and are thinking of converting the Monday Moments to a video format. Would you share your opinion about this? Tweet us www.MonicaOnTwitter.com, follow or share your thoughts on Facebook at www.MonicaOnFacebook.com

Stay tuned for more “How Do you Do it?” Posts this month and feel free to forward valuable info to your friends or invite them to receive their own Monday Moments at www.MondayMoment.com.

Which of these tips do you use for making lists and getting things done?

This week has been much talk about list making and getting things done and how to keep from getting overwhelmed with all a leader does so that you don’t end up micromanaging others. Wow, that’s a mouthful! And the truth is leadership is not just about your list and if we stay focused on that LIST, we may find that the list you make starts leading you. Here are some key guidelines and one completely unique idea that may help.

Never forget that you control what goes on your list of things to lead, do, write, email, call, or see.

• If you think you’ve got too much on your list…well…then shift some things to tomorrow.
• If you think you’ve overloaded your list, start crossing things off or shifting the urgency of some items or delegate.
• If, however, you want a completely radical way of managing your list of things to do, leaders… take note! Don’t make a list at all…until… the end of the day…

Then make a list of all the things you did and cross them all off and head for home with a glorious sense of satisfaction and achievement. Okay, so there’s always another way to look at our leadership issues!

What other tips have you found effective in your leadership of your lists, tasks, and accomplishments? We want to hear from you so tweet me @monicawofford or send me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep up the connection! Also, if you know someone to whom this particular MondayMoment would be most helpful, forward it to them or suggest they sign up at www.MondayMoment.com.

Happy Friday and of course, stay contagious!

Which of these tips do you use for making lists and getting things done?

On this week’s Monday Moment we spoke about having too much to do and how that will impact how you lead others. Well, what if you had some tips for making your list from the beginning that would actually enhance your productivity? Voila peanut butter sandwiches… here are those tips!

Divide your list into four quadrants on a piece of paper, or in your iPad or wherever you put it. Title the four quadrants as Customers, Prospects, strangers, and Admin, if you wish to stay focused on the revenue generating activities of your business or department. If that’s not your need, divide and label these quadrants as “To Do”, “To Write”, “To See”, or “To Call”. Any four segregating labels will work. The outcome is shortening each list and feeling more of a sense of accomplishment if you at least get one quadrant done. Sense of Accomplishment = More Energy to keep going!

Make a new list of your daily tasks on a clean sheet of paper every day. Starting fresh daily will keep your list and more importantly, your mind clear of clutter and free you up to focus on what is today’s priority.

Keep more than one list of items that are not just to be done today. For example, keep a list of long term projects. Keep a list of messes and incompletes. Keep a list of “wish list” items that you want to do when the merger is over or the busy season dies down or when you fill that vacancy, but are not high priority or urgent items.

Put all of your lists in one place. It defeats the purpose of organizing your thoughts and clearing your mind if you are consistently searching for “where did I write that down?” Forego using post its, scratch papers and cocktail napkins (unless it’s an emergency! Ha!) for your regular list making and keep them all on one pad of paper or in one book or one computer application. Less list searching=Less stress!

Record those items you’ve delegated and automate follow up. When you are barreling through your list and assigning tasks, it’s easy to forget who you gave what to and when and when you asked them to complete it. Record that item that you delegated to Suzy and put an automated reminder somewhere that pops up and tells you when to follow up. You won’t have to think about it and you won’t wake up at 3am in the morning worrying about whether or not she’s on track.

For many leaders, their list is their lifeline and most don’t “leave home without it”, but using these tips will make it not only handy, but more effective. What other tips have you found effective in your leadership of your lists, tasks, and accomplishments? We want to hear from you so tweet me @monicawofford or send me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep up the connection! Also, if you know someone to whom this particular Monday Moment would be most helpful, forward it to them or suggest they sign up at www.MondayMoment.com.

Do you ever wish you had more arms and more time to get it all done?

If you saw that title and immediately thought “Well, sign me UP!” then I suspect you have more than one or two things on your “Leaders List of Things To-Do”. Ha! How DO you manage it all and how do you manage your expectations of getting it all done? While it would be nice for science to work on finding a way to give us another arm or two or even more hours of the day, it’s likely not happening in our lifetime and without that as an option, let’s talk about the many tasks in your day and how much of the expectations you have of yourself completing them all, rubs off on those you lead.

Most successful leaders accomplish an enormous amount of work in a day. They may even get that label of “workaholic”, but when they expect that also of those they lead, it can turn into micromanagement and an overbearing type of leadership that is still contagious, but may not serve you well. Here are some of the key behaviors to look out for to make sure you are still driving productivity, but not driving your team members crazy!

Assess Their Natural Abilities

We talk often of personality types in the training courses provided by Contagious Companies and it is usually an in depth conversation about Emotional Intelligence. How intelligent or aware are you about the natural gifts, skills, and talents of those you lead? If you are a hard driving, get it done, always working kind of leader and you enjoy that pace, are you sure that those you lead share that same joy in constantly accomplishing tasks or are they more people oriented? Is their sense of urgency around getting things done at super-sonic speed or around making sure the needs of their teammates or customers are met and that everyone is getting along and happy? Just looking at those differences may cause you to change some of your expectations and thus reduce your stress if they are in fact, different from you in how they perform.

Check in Often

Some managers make the mistake of masterfully delegating and then forgetting to follow up, provide clear expectations or the necessary resources to get the job done. They might also over-delegate and overload someone’s plate without realizing that what they’ve asked of that person cannot possibly get done in the time frame requested. This can be avoided by scheduling regularly check in calls. Not only will it help you, the leader, stay on track and in touch, but it will also proactively head off the contagious effect of an overwhelmed and over stressed team.

Let Things Flow

There is a natural order it seems to almost everything and that includes the things on your list and that you assign to others. And while sitting on the couch eating “bon-bons” while only thinking about how productive you could be is not likely going to bring you success, fretting, fussing, pushing, yelling or staying “wrapped around the axle” about why stuff is not getting done in your time frame, isn’t either. Time and time again I have found that something that has sat on my list for longer than I’d like, worked best whenever I managed to get it done and that if I’d forced myself to do it sooner, it wouldn’t have worked out as well. Let things flow while keeping an eye on what you know is important and urgent and releasing some of the anxiety about those others things that you suspect there might be a reason for a delay…even if you can’t see the reason just yet. This flow, incidentally, will also help you connect more with those you lead as they will perceive you to be slightly more relaxed and be less fearful of your reaction should there be an unexpected delay.

When we stay stressed about our items “to get done” this can turn into a need to hover over or micromanage the living dickens out of those we lead. There are, in fact, only two types of people who need micromanagement and everybody is NOT one of those types. Hehe! Here’s a quick video on the two types and the value of micromanaging, just a bonus for you this week. Leaders Micromanage Only Those Who Need It…

Science breakthrough or not, you can do this! You can get your work done and lead those who also work with you…well! Tell us how you’re doing it! We want to hear from you so tweet me @monicawofford or send me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep up the connection! Also, if you know someone to whom this particular MondayMoment would be most helpful, forward it to them or suggest they sign up at www.MondayMoment.com.

Is your concern over meeting the many needs of those you lead keeping you up at night?

We all want that fantastic dream team and we want to let them be them and work with their preferences and help them be all they can be… AND we also have a job to do, a company to run, business to produce. Ah, the leadership balancing act.

A client called this week asking how to handle a delicate situation and in our conversation we talked through the fact while at one time he disregarded completely the need to pay attention to any of the personality “stuff” and what people needed, he was now going in the completely opposite direction and the business was suffering. Where is that balance of developing authentic, high performing team members who are confident in who they are and feel you care about their needs, but also are clear of your expectations and consequences when performance does not meet the standard? It is perhaps this very question that keeps some organizations and leaders from making the effort to get to know and thus connect with those they lead. They believe that what they don’t know won’t hurt them and they couldn’t be more wrong. You can understand those you lead on a level that shows you value them as people and still be the leader they need. But how do you do that? Here are two key guidelines to remember:

We Train People How to Treat Us

This applies to all personalities and is a primary function of human behavior. If you let people get away with behavior you would not normally tolerate merely because you are trying to reinforce their confidence and authenticity, but fail to adhere to the standard performance guidelines, you will train those you lead to follow your lead and not the guideline. The goal is to have them follow your leadership and the example best to set is one that aligns their job with their natural skills and gifts, clearly explaining how to perform the job or the consequences for poor performance, and communicate those consequences in a way they will understand if their performance warrants that discussion.

Lead First, Befriend Second

There is no cardinal rule that says you cannot be friends with those you lead, and it often happens with positive results. Yet if you are appealing to the desire you have for everyone to like you and be their friend, instead of developing the respect you have for them and they have for you, you run the risk of them taking advantage of the friendship. Be the leader in the way they need you to lead and be respectful of their gift, skills, and talents, as well as needs for communication, recognition and motivation. This may mean you work on leading you simultaneously by learning how to modify your communication style. In other words, you can still deliver discipline in a way that an Entertainer will understand without having to make the conversation a party in your office.

Your role as a leader includes serving those you lead in a way that brings out the best in them and creates the best outcome for your customer. There are a number of ways this can be done but if that dream team of yours and your concerns about how to meet all their needs and work with them is giving you nightmares, you might be out of balance in your own leadership efforts. Remember that successful leaders learn to be themselves and lead themselves well before they attempt to lead others.

What are your leadership struggles? We want to hear from you so tweet me @monicawofford or send me a message on LinkedIn and let’s keep up the connection! Also, if you know someone to whom this particular Monday Moment would be most helpful, forward it to them or suggest they sign up at www.MondayMoment.com.

Have a great Monday, an even better week and of course, stay contagious!