Leadership coaching

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many businesses in precarious positions. Long-term business closures have left many small businesses and larger companies alike teetering on the edge of a thin rail. Some will be able to pull through and make ends meet until things get back to normal and profits are more robust, but others will lose everything they have worked to build. The key to pulling through involves knowing the difference between leadership and management.

A recent Forbes.com article by Jon Michail states:

When times are good, a captain can rest back and let their first officer cruise their vessel over tranquil water. But when a storm approaches, a captain must take the helm by the hand and steer their ship toward clearer skies.

In this scenario, the captain is the leader, and the first officer is the manager. Although the manager is adept at handling the routine operating tasks, a true leader must be prepared to handle tough situations that involve creative, critical thinking and adaptability.

How Do Managers Become Leaders?

Although many people are born with leadership qualities, experience richens the experience and imparts the knowledge and wisdom that are necessary to navigate stormy seas. When you are learning to lead through tough times, five behaviors are considered critical.

1. Stay on the front lines. A true leader doesn’t cower in a secluded office and attempt to run the show from afar. Leaders are in the trenches at every level of operations and provide explicit instruction and transparency regarding their actions in dire situations.
2. Place team members’ concerns above their own. To truly gain success under challenging situations, leaders must not act to achieve recognition for themselves but have the success of each member of the company as a priority.
3. Complete transparency. The leader should always communicate information effectively and with confidence while being able to admit to unknown variables.
4. Adaptability. One of the biggest jobs of a leader is being able to prioritize tasks, while continually re-evaluating the situation and re-prioritizing, as necessary. Adaptability is a trait that all strong leaders have shared throughout history.
5. Have a forward-thinking vision. Leaders know that situations are apt to switch tracks on a dime, and they must be able to focus on the task at hand while remaining ready to change course and refocus as changes and other opportunities arise. They must be able to inspire hope, while moving forward with clear explanations of the reality of the circumstances.

When you are leading your company through this worldwide crisis, it is crucial to adhere to these principles, while learning from more experienced leaders around you. Statistics show that there will be billions of dollars in revenue in the economy moving forward and the potential to get millions of unemployed workers back to work. Like most companies, you are likely facing nearly insurmountable struggles related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, by doubling down on strong leadership, your operation could weather this storm and come out stronger in the end.

Additional Resources:
https://hbr.org/2020/07/emerging-from-the-crisis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/06/04/seven-ways-to-lead-in-this-crisis-and-beyond/#74c916ac596d
https://globalleadership.org/articles/leading-organizations/5-critical-behaviors-of-leaders-in-a-crisis/?gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevb-PlF4GlWuU8391uISf5jLU7da8Lycw-tmHysYKi1PCrbb7omtcfRoCKwQQAvD_BwE

Leadership requires a delicate balance of strategy and skill to create an environment that inspires productivity. Not every leader approaches a problem in the same way, but plenty of effective strategies exist to help you get the most out of your employees. Here are a few ways to expand your leadership skills this year.

Understand Your Leadership Style

In 1939, Kurt Lewin and a group of researchers defined three main styles of leadership. They found many differences among the types and one, in particular, produces the best response from team members. The three styles are:

• Authoritarian (Autocrat)
• Participative (Democratic)
• Delegative (Laissez-Faire)

Authoritarian leaders provide direct instruction about objectives and how to accomplish them. Authoritarian leaders use a simple command and control model with little or no input from other group members. It works best in situations where there is little time for creativity, but can seem bossy and demanding.

Participative leaders are typically the most effective. They offer guidance for group members but also seek input and ideas from others. While a project may take longer with a participative leader, each group member feels like an important part of the process and has more meaningful contributions to the results.

Delegative leaders offer very little guidance. They usually sit back and hope that someone else will take the lead. Their groups are the least productive, and members make demands from each other that result in arguments. They are unable to help with cooperation or to help the project progress.

Understanding where you fall within these three leadership styles is the key to advancing your strategy. You will be able to determine what is helping your style and what is hindering your progress. Once you know, you can develop the skills you need to make you a more effective leader.

Discover Employee Strengths

Each person on your team has a particular strength, and it is your job as the leader to discover and encourage these strengths. When each member of the team uses their strength, it can make your company stronger and more efficient. Design your goals with these strengths in mind so that everyone has a piece of the solution. Taking the time to discover and encourage these strengths shows your employees you care about them and believe they are a valuable asset to the team.

Be Passionate and Positive About the Work

Passion and positivity are contagious. When group members see your enthusiasm to start a new project, they will follow suit. Encourage the same passion and positivity in others, giving deserved praise and being genuinely thankful for contributions from the group. The positive attitude will spread, making your group work more efficiently.

Be an Effective Listener and Communicator

An important part of being a leader is listening and communicating with team members. The only way to ensure you are getting the most out of your employees is through listening to their feedback and ideas. When you can take these ideas and communicate them effectively to the rest of the team, you can foster teamwork and keep everyone working together. Non-verbal communication is also an important skill. Watch for queues and clues from your team to make everything run smoothly.

Don’t limit yourself to one leadership style, especially if one doesn’t feel natural to you; a mixture of styles usually brings the best results. Once you have identified the style that seems most intuitive to you, start including elements from other styles into your strategy, strengthening your team and your production.

Additional Resources:
https://www.verywellmind.com/ways-to-become-a-better-leader-2795324
https://www.inc.com/firas-kittaneh/how-to-improve-your-leadership-skills-for-different-scenarios.html
https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/how-step-your-leadership-game-2018

You’ve probably experienced it – the sinking feeling when your supervisor places you on a team to work on a special project. Instead of celebrating the fact that you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with others, you bemoan the fear that you’ll end up doing all the work. How do we go from dreading team projects to actually making them a powerful resource for our businesses? Five basic characteristics need to be present for this to happen.

1. Establish a Clear Purpose

If team members don’t understand the purpose of the team, how are they going to work effectively? Without a clear definition of what goals the team should accomplish, it will flounder and not produce the results you want. Breaking the overall purpose down into measurable goals helps the members see a path to success.

2. Commitment Needed Too

Beyond purpose, commitment is equally valuable. Once members understand the vision of the project clearly, are they still willing to work toward it? In your effort to establish greater commitment, try telling them how accomplishing this purpose will benefit not just the company, but them as well.

3. Delegate Responsibility

Members need to be an active part in achieving goals in order to feel valued on the team. Delegating tasks is a practical way of creating this value factor. When members know they have authority to make decisions in their given area of expertise, they receive a sense of belonging from the team. This belonging is invaluable, because it creates trust between the team leader and the members.

4. Foster Diversity

If your team consists of members who all fit into the same mold of life, chances are you’re not going to have many innovative ideas at work to achieve your goals. Diversity brings different viewpoints to the team and is invaluable when brainstorming or problem solving. What’s the point of having a team if all of its members think alike? The unique contributions of each member should merit a place on the team.

Diversity does bring opposing opinions, but by creating a framework for sharing feedback, these differing thoughts become positive means of growth for the individual and the overall purpose of the team.

5. Prioritize Friendships

Friendship is going to be the glue that holds your team together through all of the stressful moments. Prioritizing work relationships is vital and allowing those relationships to exist outside of work will solidify a team. Try talking about each member’s weekend, or what each person likes to do outside of work. These relationships will be your saving grace during stressful times because members will pull together as friends, not just as coworkers.

We often take for granted that we know how to function well as a team. Most of us have been involved in teamwork since elementary school. The problem is that most people aren’t aware that different factors actually do influence the efficacy of a team. Whether you’re a team leader, a member of a current team, or you are establishing one, put these four principles into practice and watch your team grow and succeed.

Additional Resources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313771
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/tips-for-team-building-1918512
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/tips-for-better-teamwork-1919225