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.
Audit your life
Audit your life annually to retain focus, intention and determination on people and things are truly matter to you. Your family, your health, your career, your education…whatever the priorities may be at this time, refocus on them and do away with those (both people and things) that provide no value and are a complete waste of time. We each have …
People want to be heard and appreciated
People have an innate desire to be respected, heard, understood and appreciated. Once they reach out to those of us in customer service (READ: we are all in customer service) they want to feel that their concerns and problems are important to us, that we will take them seriously and be of assistance to them. Even when we are not …
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 …
Say yes to opportunity
Opportunities are frequently unexpected and very commonly show up unannounced. How we react to them is what makes the ultimate difference in how valuable they become to us. I have already emphasized the importance of embracing opportunities and have shared a few examples last year which support the fact that opportunities and new clients don’t come announced which was, once …
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 …
Career advice: be thoughtful and intentional, be strategic
When it comes to your career and your professional future (same goes for many personal goals as well) it is essential to be thoughtful, intentional and strategic. Think long and hard about where you would like to be in 10, 15 or even 20 years and then design your strategic plan. Once you have identified your current professional summit (as …