Blog Post by Scott Seroka
If you’re a manager, you need your employees to know that you’re capable of handling your leadership position, and mistakes can threaten that image in an instant. But consider that protecting the image of being perfect or right all the time can be the biggest mistake leaders can make.
When mistakes are made, it’s not the mistake that employees will remember. It is how you handled and recovered from your mistake that people will remember the most. And, you can actually use this to your advantage. After all, you’re human, and people don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to stand up again and stand tall by taking the following actions: ...Read more
Blog Post by Scott Seroka
CYA – We all know what it means. People are so afraid of getting in trouble with their peers or managers that they save miles of email trails as if preparing for a future court case. Some even hang on to saved voice mail messages just in case the finger of blame shifts in their direction. And it’s not that surprising when you consider that our economy is still under construction and people are still afraid of, and at risk of losing their jobs – even the top-performers.
Too many employees live in fear. They lose sleep, and always seem to have something to worry about. For these reasons, CYA gives people a false sense of job security.
When problems arise today, it seems as if much more time is wasted trying to determine who in particular is to blame rather than investing that time to identify the source of those problems and finding solutions. ...Read more
Blog Post by Michelle Adams
When you hear resistance or some other feeling-reaction to your I-Message, you’ll need to make a quick shift and back off from a sending/assertive posture to a listening/understanding posture. Such a shift will communicate, “I want to be sensitive to the feelings my assertiveness brought out in you.” “I can delay trying to get what I want and listen to what you’re feeling now.”
This shifting gears (think of it as shifting from a going-forward gear to a backing-up gear) lets others know you are not out to get your needs met at their expense. Although you’re not ready to abandon your needs, you want to empathize and understand the nature of the problem your assertive I-Message caused the person to whom it was directed. This often leads to seeking a mutually acceptable solution. ...Read more
Blog Post by Scott Seroka
Being a leader places you in this precarious position where you don’t receive much feedback on your management modus operandi unless you specifically ask for it. And even in those instances, the feedback you receive may be rather diluted, as some employees are naturally apprehensive about giving their boss constructive criticism.
The good news is that there is a rather creative way to measure the effectiveness of your leadership simply by asking yourself a number of questions:
1. Do my employees go the other way when they see me coming? If your employees generally don’t speak to you or with you unless spoken to, you’re likely viewed as either unfriendly or someone with a short fuse, and that’s a problem. When people are apprehensive about speaking with their managers, they are more likely to cover up mistakes, lie by omission, point fingers, and oh yes, look for a new job instead of doing their job. ...Read more
Blog post by Michelle Adams with help from Thomas Gordon and the L.E.T. book
The Periodic Planning Conference: A New Approach to Performance Evaluation
One conclusion consistently appears in the writings of social scientists who have evaluated the thousands of research studies on leadership in formal organizations. In my own words, it is: High-productivity groups (high-achievement work groups) have leaders who are successful in fostering and maintaining in their group members enthusiasm and motivation for reaching productivity goals which the organization considers necessary to meet its needs.
As their organization’s representatives, effective leaders must perform functions that will result in a level of productivity that feels fair or equitable to top management, but not unfair or inequitable to the group members. Whatever these leader functions (behaviors) are—and this is a critical point—they are quite different from “human relations” functions or “person-centered behaviors” that make group members feel good: empathic listening, sending non-blaming I-Messages, encouraging participation in decision–making, reducing status differentials, fostering group cohesion, showing consideration for group member’s needs, being non-punitive, and so on. ...Read more
