Leaders own problems and provide solutions, not excuses

Leadership is about solutions, collaboration, motivation and empowerment. In order to be successful as a leader you must be honest, transparent and accountable. You must take ownership of issues that lay within your area of responsibility and leadership and move towards their ultimate resolutions. When they came into existence is less important than what will you do to solve them.

Be a humble leader and accept criticism

Environment must be safe for dissent and as a leader you must be accepting, even welcoming of criticism and different ideas. As long as these ideas are presented professionally and courteously, you need to accept them with humbleness and give them serious thought and consideration. After all, be mindful that people on your team and other teams may know a …

One conversation at a time, no side chatter & respect the calendar

Communication is an essential pillar in building successful teams, but at times, it needs to be managed. While in meetings it is essential for everyone to be on the same page and focused on the topic at hand. People must be both physically and mentally present and engaged into what the team is working on. This is something that I …

Excuses don’t matter, your work does

Excuses are frequently irrelevant, cheap and everyone has at least a few. While it is important to learn from previous decisions and actions, it is equally as important not to spend too much time stuck in the past. Learn from the past, assess your current state, communicate present outcomes, but spend all of your time, effort and energy on moving …

No bad apples allowed

One bad apple can spoil the rest so please remove them from the basket. As a leader you must establish, promote and support an inviting, comfortable and respectful working environment and as such you can’t allow any single individual to jeopardize your workplace. No matter how good and valuable they may be from a functional perspective if they can’t cooperate …

Support people’s dreams

Leaders support and empower others, they don’t bring them down. This also applies when people are leaving your team and moving onto new opportunities and at times even completely different careers. Good people and good employees should always be supported, even when their immediate departure will impose certain limitations and challenges to your operations. Help them during the transition phase …

Prerequisite for success: transparent leadership

In order for a team to work well together, leadership must be transparent. Leaders need to keep the entire team on the same page; have them collaborate; back each other and move in unison towards mutually agreed-upon goals. Transparent leadership where vision, mission and decisions are clearly communicated and supported with valid facts and arguments is a must for all …

Leaders empower people, they don’t micromanage

Micromanagement demonstrates lack of trust in the abilities of your staff and that is never the right thing to do. Enable and empower people to make decisions, take actions and move forward without the need to constantly come to you for every single detail. Obviously, levels of empowerment and decision making abilities will vary based on experience and your familiarity …

Pay attention to expressions, mannerisms and body language

We all know that actions speak louder than words. Additionally, it is important not to underestimate the importance of our facial expressions, mannerisms and the overall body language. It is important to keep that in mind as you meet with your team, clients, boss, partners…as they are only aware of your feelings and thoughts on particular issues based on what …