Leadership Archives - Page 12 of 17

Get Ready, Get Set, Goal! Achieving Success Through Goal Setting

August 13, 2015August 18, 2015 Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

Goals are an important part of life. Whether working to become a better version of ourselves, desiring to improve relationships, seeking more fulfillment, or desiring greater success, goals keep us moving forward. Few people actually take the time to set goals, and even fewer write them down. But studies have proven that those who actually write down goals are largely successful as compared to those who don’t, let alone those who don’t have a clear sense of their goals. Developing goals help us to attain a more desirable life, and to build self-confidence as we reflect on the concerted efforts we made to end up in a happier place than where we started. Working to achieve goals provides a great sense of empowerment.

If you are ready to get on the path toward positive change in your life, getting those goals set and preparing to put them into action will be the key foundation to a stronger, more fulfilled you. Are you ready?

Get Ready

In preparing to set your goals, it is important to look inward and consider what changes will truly make you happier. The goals you make should be about you and your desires, and not what you perceive others may want out of you. Consider what actually motivates you to be the best you that is possible. Once these reflections are taken into account, begin by making a list of the changes or improvements that you would like to make and prioritize them. Upon outlining the particular goals you have for yourself, it is time to set your goals, and yourself, up for success.

Get Set

In setting your goals, it is extremely important to articulate them positively. Don’t consider what you will lose; instead, focus on what you will gain. For example, rather than stating that you would like to eat less junk-food, aim for eating healthfully. Rather than wanting less stress, focus on creating a more balanced lifestyle. Framing goals in a positive light increases motivation, which leads to success and decreases self-criticism, which leads to defeat.

Secondly, it is important to clearly define your goals. For example, while desiring greater happiness is a great objective, to reach that end, the goal that you set must be not be vague. What does happiness look like to you? What specific areas in your life can you take control of to create greater happiness? Once you can clearly specify where you want to arrive at, you are nearly ready to set your goals in place.

A crucial element in setting goals is to ask yourself whether they are realistic and possible for you to attain. Consider the steps you will need to take in order to reach those goals, and how long it may actually take for those steps to produce a possible outcome. Break big goals down into smaller ones, and set a time-limit that is possible to meet that goal so that you can measure your progress.

Once your specific, positive, realistic goals are written down, you are ready to take action.

Goal!

Achieving your goals requires action, but if you are going to continue to move toward progress, you need to have prompts and markers in place. Displaying your goals where you will see them throughout the day will encourage, remind, and motivate you to continue toward success. Having a support system in place, where a friend, family member, or colleague can check in on your progress is equally important to keeping you accountable in moving forward. Lastly, it is essential that successes – even small ones – are celebrated, ensuring you that betterment is possible.

Are you ready to make changes in your life? You are the only thing standing in the way. Go for it!

6 Ways to Identify a Prospective Leader

August 6, 2015July 29, 2015 Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

Imagine this: An organization is seeking a key financial officer. Because of their location, the position is very difficult to fill. Two of their staff accountants have leadership potential, which they’ve identified, but neither has leadership experience or their CPA, which is a requirement of the position. Time constraints force the company to hire an experienced financial leader from the outside and provide competitive compensation, relocation assistance, and extensive orientation to the company.

Promoting from within is rarely possible if leaders wait until the position opens to begin identifying potential candidates. If the leadership team of the above organization had been identifying prospective leaders consistently and investing in their education, training, and development, they would have had a leader in house when the position opened. They would have dodged the high compensation for an experienced professional, the relocation allowance, and the costs invested in orientation to the company. Furthermore, the right leader from within the organization has employee respect and knowledge of roles and processes from day one.

Identifying leadership potential requires conscious observation of behaviors. What characteristics can indicate leadership potential?

They Show Above-the-Bar Performance

Performance and attendance that exceed expectations are two very early indicators of a potential leader. Potential leaders personally invest in the success of the organization through commitment to their role. They show relentless drive and hunger for increased knowledge and success.

They are Solution Oriented

Potential leaders are solution oriented. They never bring a problem to the table without a viable solution and an understanding of the shortcomings or potential issues each solution may bring. They are quick to identify problems in processes whose solutions may improve the organization.

They Display an Organizational Viewpoint

One surefire way to spot a potential leader is to identify those are able to see the big picture. They understand what others do in the organization and the value of each role. They express agreement with their supervisor often and display an understanding of their supervisor’s responsibilities. They understand the discernment process and trust the administration team.

They Make Decisions

Potential leaders analyze data to make sound decisions. They weigh out pros and cons and take risks when beneficial to the company. They seek guidance when necessary, but require very little in the decision making process. Strong leaders must be able to make decisions based on data presented and very few employees show this kind of commitment to a decision.

They Do the Right Thing

A potential leader claims their mistakes regardless of their fear of repercussion. They make ethical business decisions, always choosing what is right over what is easy or may benefit themselves. They stand up against unethical behavior and refuse to participate.

They Appreciate Feedback

In order to be a good leader, an employee has to be able to take feedback constructively. Employees who show increased drive following constructive feedback indicate high potential for leadership ability.

Supervisors and management should seek to identify leaders as early as possible; some are evident as early as during the screening process. Identified leaders should be provided with coaching and mentoring, educational opportunities, and insight into the management process. It should be clearly communicated to them that the leadership team believes they have the potential to advance within the organization. They may be promoted slowly to more demanding positions to test their mental fortitude, people skills, commitment, and ability to learn and evolve.

Because leaders promoted from within are tested over a much longer period of time and in more complex ways and trained specifically for the organization, most companies find that there is less risk involved then when hiring from the outside.

How to Set Performance Goals that Motivate Employees

July 30, 2015July 29, 2015 Shannon Cassidy 1 Comment

In today’s culture of goal setting and performance motivation, it is common for managers and employees to meet regularly and set improvement objectives. This practice isn’t new, but despite its solid history, many organizations still do it wrong. If you’re interested in setting performance goals that motivate employees to do their best, improve their output and quality, and remain loyal to your company, the tips below will help you do it.

Respect Intrinsic Employee Motivation

The reason the Internet is filled with advice about how to set and reach personal goals is that people are inherently motivated by their own desires. The ways in which they naturally want to improve, and the successes that fill them with pride and satisfaction, simply have more sway than metrics imposed top-down by a company.

Of course, part of running an effective team or organization is that you have to ensure employees meet the goals necessary to keep the company profitable. Nevertheless, there are various routes to the same goal, and talking with employees to find out how they learn, how they work best, what motivates them and what gives them satisfaction can all help you target the right goals in the right way.

Don’t Set Stretch Goals

Although goal-setting is a routine aspect of most management strategies, research hints at its destructive side. It’s bogus to say you shouldn’t set goals at all, but stretch goals may not be that helpful. These can add stress to employees’ lives, cause them to focus on certain goals to the detriment of others, add work to their coworkers’ plates, and sap motivation if they fail to meet them regularly. Instead, stick with in-between goals that challenge without running the risk of proving too arduous.

Choose Specific, Measurable Goals

Vague goals can be destructive. An employee who works in a call center benefits much more from the objective “Handle two more customer calls per hour” than “Improve your call time.” Always wondering whether or not they are meeting the goal can be stressful and draining to the employee, so be very clear.

Be sure to take into account both quantity and quality. It is unfair to set an employee up for a fall by focusing on one metric to the detriment of another. For example, in the case of customer calls, if you’re trying to up the employee’s number of calls, be clear on how to do this without sacrificing quality. Otherwise, you may have a worker with a higher number of completed calls and worse performance ratings. That’s no good for anyone.

Align to Overall Company Goals

A performance goal isn’t worth much if it caters to the employee’s strengths, desires and learning style, but does nothing to help the company itself. Therefore, any performance goals you and the employee choose must align to the company’s strategy for improvement. Success Factors recommends focusing employee efforts on company goals and clearly outlining the expected responsibilities associated with meeting them.

Plan How You Will Assess Goals

This is closely related to a step above – choosing specific goals – but is actually connected to how you will ascertain whether or not the employee is meeting the goals you’ve chosen. In order for a goal to be successful by truly motivating an employee, both you and the employee must know what the follow-through will look like.

Perhaps you schedule informal bimonthly reviews to talk about how it’s going, or perhaps you track stats in a spreadsheet, a program or an app. Maybe you randomly sit in on customer calls to check progress, or monitor the sales numbers. Such a plan lends the manager peace of mind and the employee motivation to succeed and security in knowing their strides will be recognized. Which brings us to …

Recognize Goals Regularly

No matter how well you target specific areas of improvement, align goals and create assessment plans, if you routinely fail to acknowledge employees’ progress, they are less likely to try. Unfortunately, after second grade, stickers and candy bars don’t work so well, so you’re best off finding a way to recognize employee successes that will be meaningful to the employee.

Be sure to take into account each individual’s personality and preferences when doing so. While some employees might feel gratified to be put on a project as a result of their hard work, others might feel punished by the increased workload. Similarly, while many people love validation in front of the group, others find it humiliating. If you’re not sure, ask.

Goal-setting, once you institute these tips into your routine practice, is an effective way to motivate employees and lend them a sense of achievement in their daily work lives. Doing it right will benefit you, them and the company, so don’t wait.

How Self-Directed Learning Can Improve Your Workplace

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

That employees perform better when they have agency and choice, and when they see the value of the tasks they are performing, is hardly news. Yet many companies aren’t sure what to do with this idea … how can they help employees feel valued and autonomous, but still accomplish the goals of the organization?

Self-directed learning is one such way. By enabling employees to have a hand in their own education, an organization can offer valuable trust to their workers that will be repaid in innovation, loyalty and productivity. Before you can instill a culture of self-directed learning in your own workplace, however, you need to know the basics.

What Is Self-Directed Learning?

Although the name is self-explanatory, let’s offer a definition of this concept, as supplied by selfdirectedlearning.com: “In self-directed learning (SDL), the individual takes the initiative and the responsibility for what occurs. Individuals select, manage, and assess their own learning activities, which can be pursued at any time, in any place, through any means, at any age … For the individual, SDL involves initiating personal challenge activities and developing the personal qualities to pursue them successfully.”

Self-directed learning, in other words, is learning that the individual gets to direct. They choose what to learn, how to learn it, and most importantly why to learn it. That is to say, they get to choose the outcome they desire and work toward it independently in the way they see fit. This might be a personal improvement, a project, an organizational goal or a combination; the choice is theirs.

How Does Self-Directed Learning Engage People?

Self-directed learning, taken too far, can become pandering, and that is not what you want. However, at a reasonable level that doesn’t affect organizational performance, self-directed learning gives employees a personal stake in the workplace. The ability to choose their own goals and work toward them is a powerful motivator. Think about how motivated we are by hobbies, because they interest us and are a task of our own choosing. Self-directed learning accomplishes the same engagement-generating ends.

What Workplace Outcomes Does It Encourage?

When employees are given time to pursue their own projects and interests, the chances that they will come up with something that measurably improves the organization as a whole increase. Of course, you cannot sacrifice the bottom line to every employee whim or inventive notion, but neither should you stifle these impulses in the name of efficiency. When employees have time to learn what they want to learn, to improve their performance in ways they see fit, and contribute to the workplace according to their own ideas, they are happier and more fulfilled. According to the Harvard Business Review, “71% of respondents rank employee engagement as “very important to achieving overall organizational success.” So why wouldn’t you do what you can?

How Do You Create a Culture of Self-Direction?

There is no simple answer to this question, of course. Self-directed learning takes years to instill in employees, and may not even be something you are good at yourself. No worries. Start small, with open periods where employees can choose their own tasks. Provide a variety of resources they can reference. Hold meetings in which you help employees choose a direction, then periodically meet to keep them on track and reward success. Let everyone know you’re emphasizing self-directed learning, and ask for suggestions whenever people have them.

How Can Employees Contribute?

Obviously the main thrust of self-directed learning is that employees will have more of a stake in their own education, training and workplace edification. However, too many employers presume this means they should choose what they learn from a specified set of resources, say, or they should choose how they learn from a limited built-in structure of “free time.”

Unfortunately, when employees’ choice is limited to choices that have been made for them, that limits the potential of self-directed learning somewhat. Sure, you can’t restructure the entire workplace or workday, but you can draw on employee opinion as often as possible. One of the main ways self-directed learning improves the workplace is by giving people a stake in outcomes. Surveys, polls, face-to-face meetings and other interactions can help you take the pulse of the company and give employees a dog in the race.

It’s no secret that when employees feel valued and interested, they perform better. Because self-directed learning can deliver those outcomes, you’re missing out if you fail to incorporate its principles in your organization. With a little tweaking or your workplace culture and structure, you will deliver meaningful change that can measurably impact engagement, performance and overall organizational success.

Four Ways to Lead Through Failure

June 25, 2015June 23, 2015 Shannon Cassidy Leave a comment

“Failure is NOT an option!”

This unspoken NASA creed was in understood to be in effect during every mission, especially the Apollo 13 Houston-We-Have-a-Problem episode.

While this quote makes a great motivational mantra to build team enthusiasm, it is not reality. In fact, failure is ALWAYS an option. The Apollo 13 astronauts could have easily launched themselves on an endless journey into deep space. Whether internal error or outside occurrences beyond our foresight or control, failure happens. But what are we to do as leaders in the midst of failure?

1. Maintain enthusiasm

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

A good leader keeps her or his head up during tough times. The leader is called to stand on a parapet and look out towards the horizon, discovering possibilities. Shoegazing at the problem at hand will not inspire confidence, lead the troops, or promote outside-the-box thinking needed to find solutions. When, as a leader, you take this higher view, you can maintain enthusiasm without becoming a false, rah-rah cheerleader, and this you must not become. Your team will disregard inauthentic attempts at motivation. Instead, be honest, stating clearly, “I know things are rough,” or “Okay, we did experience failure on this project.” But quickly let them know that though this battle may be lost, there are more battles coming which are quite winnable.

Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of the 20^th century, experienced colossal failures in individual battles, yet he kept a can-do attitude. “If you’re going through hell, keep going,” he said, as well as his famed statement on adversity:

“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

2. Shape the story

Failure is often measured by the numbers–a poor profit statement, an abysmal product launch, or a bad department review. But know this, no data is ever perceived in an entirely objective manner. Everyone sees the data through their own colored lenses and shapes their views of the current situation within the context of their internal narrative. This is always true, no matter how analytical a person appears to be. In bad (and good) situations, as a leader you should never pitch data “neutrally” before your team without context. Recent studies have shown they won’t receive it without bias. Instead, as the leader, you must shape the context by telling the story that surrounds the data. Leaders articulate, “Here is what the data means, and here is our response to this challenge or failure.” To maintain morale, be sure to tell the story of past obstacles that have been overcome through your team’s smart and diligent efforts. Include historical stories of those who faced incredible failure and saw the cards stacked against them, yet they succeeded. (See Abraham Lincoln, Apollo 13, and the WWII Allies if you need fodder.)

3. Encourage Failure

Wait, what? Yes, good leaders encourage micro-failures to avoid macro-failures. Applying creative efforts that have a chance of failing to the smaller scope of a problem is crucial to overcoming over-arching failure at the highest levels. Encourage your team to think beyond traditional solutions while providing them safe boundaries to work within. In this way, if things go south, one area of the project is affected by the creative effort’s failure, but, hopefully, cross-infection into other areas of the project can be avoided.

Many businesses have team members who are so afraid of the reaction from on high, they become paralyzed, unable to come to any viable solution when failure or problems occur. Reward your team members for innovative efforts regardless of the outcome. Today’s botched solution may become tomorrow’s genius idea.

Have team members or departments share their failures with other team members without reprisal. Of course, before they share it, you will want to vet their presentation to help them shape the context and narrative. Good leaders are always story-shapers. Having those under your leadership hear others say, “We hit a huge pothole. The wheels came off, and here is how we are putting them back on,” is a way to ensure your team stays nimble in their thinking when failure does occur.

4. Keep a Failure Catalog

Failure is rarely an end in itself. It is simply a means for a great leader to say, “Ouch, let’s learn from that and not allow that to happen again.” Keep a catalog of your failures with the story of how you overcame each of them attached. This record will give you great hope when a new failure or problem arises. You can view a situation that seems insurmountable, and reflect back as you realize many other problems appeared to be the Mount-Everest-of-all-failures in their time. You survived and grew from those failures. You’ll grow from this one, as well.

Remember

Failure IS always an option. In fact, to fail is human, and every leader, at last check, was human. Press forward when failure happens, using your talents and skills to lead through adversity—maintain enthusiasm, tell stories, encourage failure, and keep a catalog. It is this type of leadership that will inspire your team and, should a large enough problem occur, place your name in the history books alongside other great leaders. Remember, failure is merely a means to better the story of future success.